After 51 years on the Fort Wayne newspapers’ sports beat, veteran reporter Steve Warden has traded his press pass for a debut author’s badge, chronicling his half-century journey in a new book called, Showing My Work: 50 Years of Bylines & Deadlines around the Fort.
A New Haven native, Warden spent those years as columnist and beat writer primarily covering Indiana and Purdue basketball and football, and Notre Dame football.
With the addition of feature writer to his newspaper title in the last few years at the newspaper, he was able to enjoy most weekends off, while developing a whole new network of stories lines and relationships.
Here, WBOI’s Julia Meek discusses the fine points of his craft with Warden, the philosophy that drives his dedication and the connections he has made along the way.
Showing My Work: 50 Years of Bylines & Deadlines around the Fort is available directly from Amazon.
Connect with the author at his Facebook page.
Below is a transcript of the conversation:
Julia Meek: Steve Warden, welcome.
Steve Warden: Thank you.
Julia Meek: So, 50 years of bylines and deadlines, that is your work summary, as well as your new book title. Congratulations on both, by the way. Now, really quickly, the passion for your craft of sports writing, where and how did it all begin?
Steve Warden: Well, I have a passion for writing, and I just happened to write about sports, okay? (chuckles) And I think I said that I was too dumb to do anything else. I love to write.
It's one of those times where you get an assignment in high school saying you have to do it, and I was saying, yippee, skippy, while everybody else was moaning. But yes, I've always had a passion for writing.
Julia Meek: Way back all through school.
Steve Warden: Yeah, absolutely.
Julia Meek: So, you love to write. Apparently, you love sports. If that genre itself hooked you, what is it about the writing of it that is so addictive?
Steve Warden: It's the telling of the story. And it's finding the personality. The game, because I've had to cover many, many, many, many, many games, but the game, to me, is inconsequential.
It's the personalities who play these games that I find intriguing.
Julia Meek: You are saying you're equal opportunity, as long as it's getting you a good story to tell.
Steve Warden: Yeah, it is. I mean, heaven knows that I've had to cover enough Angola -West noble basketball games. And you try and find something positive to write about that.
But you have to watch. You have to listen. Lou Holtz once said, that's why God gave us two ears and one mouth. (all chuckle) It's better to listen than it is to speak.
Julia Meek: Then you have taken some good words of wisdom for your own, to get to the point; you're writing about what a wonderful way to think of the world, that way, Steve, and one thing is clear and transparent. You are a storyteller.
You know your topic and your populations being served. Where do you think that came from, wanting to do that, but especially, how did you develop it once you knew you wanted to do it?
Steve Warden: Well, I think I mentioned in the book, and again, thank you for having me. I was listening to Hilliard Gates on the radio as a kid, and I was just enamored with listening to him. When my dad and I would listen to the game at our Formica-topped table in our kitchen in New Haven. (chuckles)
And I would listen, and I got lost, will Hilliard, and I got lost with watching sports on television. And I love to play. I love to play sports. I wasn't that great, but I enjoyed it so much. And I thought, well, let's combine the two.
Julia Meek: And so, the passion was enough to carry it all forward?
Steve Warden: That is great. Okay, so, now fast forward to that tender age of 16 when you did jump into the sports writing, literally, as your job.
Steve Warden: Yeah, it really was. It really was. The fact that, and my dad was a factory worker, and God bless him for it, but he told me, he says, find something that you like, find something that you love.
And I know it's a cliche, but I completely agree with him, that I'm getting paid to go to these...I'm going to the Final Four in New Orleans, by the way. Oh, and yes, I'm getting paid. So yeah, it was, I was very, very, very, very lucky.
Steve Warden: Sure?
Julia Meek: What was the state of sports back then, from the very local to the International?
Steve Warden: Well, back then, it was essentially who, what, when, where and why. And whenever we covered a game, as, in that era of the 1967-68-69 we didn't talk to the athletes. We told what happened.
So that was a big change. And then also with the advent of Title Nine in 1972, that suddenly brought so many other stories into the mix, and we're thrilled with that.
Julia Meek: And that gave you more fodder, then, to follow your heart. (chuckles)
Steve Warden: Yeah, it really did. It really did. It was a time...we had just gotten over Vietnam. We were in the midst of Nixon, and things were changing so rapidly at that time.
But yeah, suddenly the personality of sports came to the fore rather than what's going on, because I think television also had a big factor in that.
Julia Meek: And brought everybody right into your world.
Steve Warden: Exactly, exactly. Sure. Yeah.
Julia Meek: So, your writing style is cleverly inclusive, and the human-interest side of it is very, very well developed, in the book itself, as well as within your entrees. And we get your philosophy on all of that. How intentional is this, that you always wrote with the human interest first?
Steve Warden: Oh, I think that's paramount. I think it was back then when it started, and I think it still is. We already know what has happened.
We know that Indiana lost to Ohio State, but we want to know a "why." And so, it's the personality of the individuals, to me, that is so important. That's what people want to read about. And we have a tendency to get closer to our athletes that way.
Julia Meek: It's all part of the family.
Steve Warden: Sure, exactly, sure.
Julia Meek: Now for those not already familiar with your style and perspective, you add a great blend of humor, and you tease on your own self, quite generously as needed. What has that gotten you over the years, by your pen, and I guess just in general.
Steve Warden: Oh, it's a game, folks (all laugh) and some people take it seriously. And I understand, and I would get sad if my particular team, the Miami Dolphins, lost!
But it is a game, and you have to have fun, and you, you have to put things in perspective. And the better you can do that, the better off you are.
Julia Meek: And get a following, of course, too. It all behooves you to do this. Were you born with it, do you think? Before you ever started developing it, was it in your heart, do you believe, to be that way?
Steve Warden: Well, I was brought up showing respect for people. That was drilled into me, (chuckles) and so I tried to continue that through my writing and not look for the bad things. Believe it or not, Bob Knight and I got along.
Julia Meek: There's a testimony.
Steve Warden: Yeah, yeah, we got along, and it's because I've never tried to read his mind. He seemed to be appreciative of that.
Julia Meek: Quite interesting. Now, your layout, speaking of interesting, certainly is interesting. Your book is in four divisions. You call them Columns, Fun & Games, Telling Stories, which is the largest of the divisions, by the way.
And then R.I.P.s and Retirements, by which we very clearly learn a lot about all of the sports that you ever wrote about, but we learn a lot about you, also, and your life and a lot of things that matter to you through that writing. Why did you choose that format, and are you intentionally adding everything as you go?
Steve Warden: Oh, well, sure, I think so. I think a media person has to present themselves, and I guess, in that sense, I was a media person. And you have to develop a trust, and you'd have to develop a friendship with your readers.
Maybe that's what I did, maybe unintentionally. I don't know, I wasn't thinking, oh, I want this guy to be my buddy, so I'm going to write about myself. But, but no, maybe that's that was the reason why.
Julia Meek: That makes sense, and you seemingly had free reign, maybe a duty to cover it all, to cover all the sports all the time. Then, as now, how do you know where to start? How to approach the games or matches of the day. Sports is seasonal but where do you begin?
Steve Warden: Well, let's say you go to a ball game, and yes, this team scores, and then that team scores, and then you go back and forth. What you do is you wait for something interesting to happen, or unique, or an individual who makes a spectacular play.
You don't want to write about the entire game at all. So what you do is you focus, and you learn how to focus, and you see that moment, and you seize that moment, and that's what you write about, rather than the entire picture. It's, I guess it's the opposite of pointillism.
You know, you can't sit back and show the whole thing. You choose one particular time, and then you incorporate what happened.
Julia Meek: Do you sort of regard your writing as it came to you, perhaps as painting a picture?
Steve Warden: Oh, absolutely, painting a picture. And it was a bit like theater, particularly a basketball court. I mean, in football, if you cover a football game, you're so far removed, you're up in the press box.
But when you're covering a basketball game, the players and the coaches and everything is so close to you. You can feel the emotion. You can feel the electricity. You can see the emotion. And so you try and capture that in a story.
Julia Meek: The drama, drama, drama is naturally close to you, a very interesting perspective, to be sure. Steve. And from that reporting angle, do you have a favorite sport or level of expertise that you like among the sports?
Steve Warden: A favorite sport to cover is probably college basketball. I truly enjoy that even though Bob Knight was the center of it. It was it was a fun sport to cover. But again, what I had talked about before is that you got to see the emotion, and you were so close to it.
So that was one; I really just, I loved high school sports. I loved high school baseball. I loved high school wrestling, believe it or not, that was one of my favorite sports to cover. Because it is just, you know, the kid and the mat and that's it. There's no one else to blame, nowhere else to hide. I really enjoyed that.
Julia Meek: Anything you don't really like or found it a chore to report on?
Steve Warden: I didn't like the political side of reporting. I didn't like the financial side of reporting. That seemed to bog me down. I just, I didn't enjoy it. It's something that we had to do periodically.
And also, if you heard that a kid got in trouble with the law, you had to chase that down. That was no fun, whatsoever. But of the sports writing, yeah, that's something that I didn't enjoy.
Julia Meek: Because, yes, it was all part of your beat.
Steve Warden: It really was. It really was, yeah.
Julia Meek: So, on that line, we all want to believe that our team is the best. Is there an art to keeping it all balanced for the winners and the losers, and everybody concerned in any given game and the perspective?
Steve Warden: Oh, my gosh, Julia! Uh, I would write about Indiana and a Purdue fan would just send me an email or whatever, and you're so biased IU. But then, I would write about something else and an Indiana fan, you are so biased Purdue. What did you do? Go to Purdue? (all chuckle)
And, and you know that was the case, and was also the case in high schools locally. So you had to, you had to editorialize a little bit, but you also knew of a line that could not be crossed.
But oh my gosh, yeah! It was a fine dance at times where you just had to hold back and report what happened rather than try and editorialize way too much.
Julia Meek: So sometimes less is more, and more can be a loaded gun?
Steve Warden: Precisely!
Julia Meek: Now, Steve, every business changes over a 50 year span, no matter what it is. What are some of the biggest changes you've witnessed while you were on the sports beat?
Steve Warden: Well, again, I think it was the financial aspect. Of course, I wasn't on the beat when the NIL came into play, but we would see players become a little too media savvy, and the innocence seemed to have been taken out of the games.
Now, do we go along with the flow? Sure, we do. But as an old geezer myself, I didn't want to see that, but you still had to do that. So yeah, that was that was one thing.
Women's Sports was a huge influx between the time I started, and to where we are now. My gosh, look at Caitlin Clark and what she has done, not just for the WNBA, but I think for women's sports in general.
And all that, I think, really helped out with the 1999 women's team winning the World Cup. I think that set off a firestorm, and now Caitlin Clark is just continuing that.
Julia Meek: And it sounds like that it's never going to go anywhere, but straight up, across the Universe.
Steve Warden: I agree. which is good. I'm glad that that is happening.
Julia Meek: And now, your accolades are many, from actually a whole staff Pulitzer Prize in 1983 to your induction in the IndianaSportswriters and Sportscasters Hall of Fame. Is there one that will be forever in your heart?
Steve Warden: Being a grandpa?
Julia Meek: (laughs) There's a sports record!
Steve Warden: Uh, you know, that and being a dad. But as far as an accolade, gosh, you know you, we're not in it for the accolades. We just enjoy the game so much and enjoy the people so much and the friends you make along the way.
And I know that's kind of a cop out answer, but no, I really don't. And again, we're not in it for that. We're having a good time. It was a wonderful career, and I'm so thrilled to have had it.
Julia Meek: One thing, since you did introduce the subject, seeing through the eyes of your kids and your grandkids, because you do have lovely kids and grandkids, what does sports mean to you, looking through that big picture of their perspectives?
Steve Warden: Some are really into sports, and some are not, and I love them equally. I have a grandson who once thanked me years ago, for not pushing him towards sports.
And I have another grandson who loves to play sports, but he told me, the little jerk, he said (all laugh) he said, you know, he says, I found out one thing that's really boring is reading about sports. (chuckles)
I said, Wait a minute! So, yeah, you know, you, you love them no matter what. And I have granddaughters who are very athletic, and I go to their games, and it's nice now being, it's nice going to the games now and cheering rather than having to report and write about them.
Julia Meek: That's an interesting perspective that you've picked up then in the last several years?
Steve Warden: Well, sure. Of course, the problem is, when my grandson plays football and I have to sit out in the stands like everyone else, and there's this warm press box up there, I'm looking longingly at that. (chuckles) But you know, hey, that's, that's all right, I had my turn.
Julia Meek: Very interesting point as well. Now, okay, your last four reporting years were actually devoted to general features as times changed at the newspapers, you picked that up. You are a natural for it. But how did that assignment resonate with you?
Steve Warden: Well, that started with our managing editor at the time, swung by my desk and said we had just lost a couple feature people. And she came by the desk. She says, I have been musing something. And I said, What's that? She's, well, come to my office.
So went in there, and she says, What would you think of going to the Features Department? And I said, that's fine. She says, Oh, well, you might have to work a weekend now and then. And I'm thinking, Wait a minute, I worked weekends for 47 years, for crying out loud, (chuckles) that sounds like it's good to me.
So, it's something that I, that I really enjoyed. It was nice not having to worry about the games or what have you, and you had time to write. You had time to sit and chat with a person and get to know them.
There was one family that I became very close with. The mother said, you're a part of our family now, and to me, that's that's why we're in the business, to get close to them.
Julia Meek: Amen. Thank you for sharing that. So, Steve, in your book, your introductory words, with a sweet anecdote, you note, "I understood early in this career that journalism and compassion aren't that far apart."
Now my last question, what do both journalism and compassion mean to you right now in your life, after all these years?
Steve Warden: Julia, this is our home, okay? And so, I think you have to be a friend and neighbor. And maybe that makes me a lousy journalist, but I think that you have to be a friend and neighbor to live with the people that you're writing with and about.
And the story came about by Tracy foster, I met when he was a player at Homestead. He told me the story, he was bragging about himself after a game when he played, and I didn't write about it, and I told him, Tracy, I said, That's not you.
And he reminded me of that story, and he says, I've never forgotten that. And that was a wonderful compliment to me, the best compliment, and I appreciate him mentioning that.
Julia Meek: Steve Warden is a retired sportswriter and features writer for Fort Wayne Newspapers and author of, Showing My Work: 50 years of Bylines and Deadlines around the Fort. Thank you for the stories you've shared, including this one, Steve, do carry the gift.
Steve Warden: Julia, I thank you so much for having me.
