The Grateful Dead may have put it best in describing how I got to be here, in the sports editor's chair at The Sentinel: What a long, strange trip it's been.

My favorite high school English teacher saw I had a way with words and encouraged me to pursue it further. A lifelong love of sports - indulged by my mother and shaped by word magicians like Bill King, Lon Simmons, Roger Angell and even Howard Cosell - made me think getting paid to go to games was an excellent way to make a living. My professors at San Jose State helped form the mindset of a journalist. Editors at papers in Atwater, Merced, Turlock and the fun and sun capital of Arizona, Lake Havasu City, taught me more about the craft and how the words, along with photos and graphics, can leap off a page and grab the reader's attention.

And now, some 30 years after my first bylined stories chronicling that championship football season for the Samuel Ayer Trojans for the school newspaper (strangely enough, also called The Sentinel), I'm back in familiar territory, working with coaches and athletes. I'm even looking forward to covering Friday night football.

But while this column so far has been all about me, it really isn't.

As I re-enter the ring ... uh, let's make that the octagon, out of respect for my tag-team partner, Jeremy Luchau ... the goal is to make the sports section about you, from those who don the pads under those Friday night lights to those kicking the soccer ball around the pasture.

With the start of the school sports season around the corner, we're working on several changes that we hope will make The Sentinel's sports pages not only the place to go for the latest information on teams in our area, but the best and most exciting section possible.

One change you may have noticed already, an occasional feature called "Around the USA," which will feature, via our news services, some columnists you may have heard of, like Bill Plaschke from the Los Angeles Times and Michael Wilbon from The Washington Post, and maybe a few you haven't, such as Tim Dalhberg from The Associated Press, to add a different perspective to the Olympics, World Series, Super Bowl, Stanley Cup and other events.

Does this mean we're abandoning our keyboards, or local events? Heck no. I hope to make this a weekly habit (and hope you will too), and Jeremy will continue to write about the local combat sports scene as well as a refocused effort on high school sports.

It's impossible to be everywhere, of course, which is where you come in. The hardest story to tell is the one we never know about. If we don't have the youth baseball standings, or scores from the youth football games, or anything else that's going on, in the paper, it doesn't mean we can't stand your sport or have a vendetta against your child, it usually means no one told us what the scores were.

Fortunately, there are several ways to reach us. To submit news, upcoming events and, yes, even those team pictures, the best way is via e-mail to sports@HanfordSentinel.com. If you want to talk to me, call 583-2430 and the next voice you'll hear will be mine or an amazing electronic likeness, depending on when you phone.

For one of the state's smaller counties, Kings County has an amazing athletic legacy, including Tommie Smith, Jewerl Thomas, Dutch Warmerdam, Lorenzo Neal, Shawntinice Polk, Amy Parrish, David Ausberry, Tara Chennault, Avery Horn, John Clark, Ryan Bowen and Lori Romero-Gardner, to name just a few.

Who will the next stars be? That's part of why I come to work each day, to find out. See you at the game!

Richard de Give is The Sentinel's sports editor. Contact him at 583-2430 or at rdegive@hanfordsentinel.com. Richard also blogs at www.hanfordsentinel.com/blogs

(Aug. 10, 2008)