For more than two decades, Mondays meant turning to Rudy Martzke’s weekend reviews in USA Today. So it seems right that this interview should run only on a Monday.

For months, I had Martzke on my list of story ideas. I finally decided to get it done after I did a Q/A last week with Martzke’s replacement, Michael Hiestand, who recently took the buyout from USA Today.

Histand said: “The first thing I think about with Rudy is that whenever I talked to someone in the business, they all felt like they had to tell me a Rudy Martzke story.

Indeed, there will never be another Rudy Martzke in our business, both in terms of personality and for the power of his TV Sports column. Especially on Mondays, when Martzke reviewed the weekend coverage. A harsh critique could ruins a broadcaster’s or an executive’s week. Heaven forbid someone should get a “Dreaded Glitch Award.”

In 2000, John Walters wrote about him in Sports Illustrated:

While it may be argued that Rudy Martzke is to journalism what Rudy Ruettiger was to football, there is no denying that his Sports on TV column has influenced the fate of many a talking head. “Network executives, every one of them, don’t breathe until they read him in the morning,” says CBS college basketball analyst Billy Packer. “They’ll never admit it, though.”

Readers couldn’t get enough. They still ranked Martzke as their favorite columnist in USA Today years after he left the paper in April, 2005.

Martzke, 70, now lives with his wife in a retirement community in Florida. When I talked to him last week, he just came off the golf course, where he shot a 90, “two strokes better than my handicap.”

Martzke still has his hand in the business, doing some consulting work. And yes, he still watches TV sports with a critical eye. Who knows? Maybe he’ll even publish his thoughts again one day. I offered him the opportunity to vent at Sherman Report. Everyone should consider themselves warned.

Here is my Q/A:

So what is Rudy Martzke doing these days besides playing golf?

When I retired from USA Today, I had some entities that asked me to do some consulting for them. I did some work for the Pro Bull Riders Association. I watched some of their show and gave them reviews. What they did well; what they didn’t do well.

I do some work for a sports agent agency. I’ll recommend some announcers for them.

I’ve got a card that says, ‘Martzke Consulting: Media and Marketing.’ I put in a few hours a week, not a lot.

Why did you decide to retire in 2005?

I did the column for 23 years. I enjoyed it immensely, but I worked it quite hard. For a while, I wrote it five days a week. We only came out five days a week. I always was on call. People would call me with tips and I always wanted to get the scoop.

One day, I called human resources. I asked, ‘What would my pension be?’ They said it would be this much. I’ll say this, it was pretty surprising. I said, ‘OK, I think I’ll retire.’

I thought it was time.

How did it feel? Did you suffer through any withdrawal?

Yeah, there was somewhat of a withdrawal. But there also was a sense of relief at deadline time.

My day used to start at 9 a.m. I’d get on the phone and call all the PR folks. I always checked in with everyone every day.

One time, I put in a call to Mike Tirico. I finally got a call back. We’re talking and I hear a whoosh. I said, ‘Mike, are you playing golf?’ He said, ‘Yeah.’ I said, ‘Mike, are you in the rough?’ He said, ‘Yeah.’

How did it feel to have all that power while you were doing the column?

In 2000, Danny Sheridan and Mike Gottfried organized a roast for me in Mississippi. It was for charity. Tim Brando was the MC, guys like Cris Collinsworth, Lee Corso, Randy Cross, Brent Musburger, Billy Packer were there.

Corso got up and said, ‘We’re all here because we’re afraid of the little SOB.’

I didn’t expect any of this. I just enjoyed being home and watching sports on TV during the weekends. I started writing about the good and bad I saw. I had pet things like ‘Dread glitch’ and ‘Say what?’ It just took off.

I had people tell me if they made a mistake, they hoped I wasn’t watching.

How do watch sports on TV now. Do you still critique things?

Yes, I still do. I’ll wince if I see something I don’t like. I also like it when someone gets off a good line or there’s a good production angle.

I can’t watch sports on TV without watching it like I used to. I guess there’s something in my system.

Who do you like now?

There are a lot of new people coming up. It’s great to see. However, during the last Sports Emmys, who were the guys getting the big nominations? Al Michaels, Bob Costas, Jim Nantz. Those were the top guys when I left.

I took a lot of pride in touting guys before others did. One of them was Cris Collinsworth. I knew he was going to be good. Now he’s the top NFL analyst.

Another guy I caught in his infancy was Dick Vitale. I remember one time early on, we were driving. He was complaining (starts to imitate Vitale), ‘Rudy, I don’t know if I can make enough money in this business.’

I said, ‘Dick, you’re good. Just keep at it.’

Sure enough, the guy now is making millions.

What strikes you now about the business?

You look at what has happened to newspapers. There have been a lot of changes and a lot of people have lost jobs.

My feeling is that there always will be room for newspapers as long as they move with the times. It took longer than it should have, but a lot of them have caught on.

You covered rights fees for a long time. Do the massive right fees astound you?

Yeah, it does astound me, but at the same time, it shouldn’t. I remember when negotiations would begin, the networks would say, ‘There’s no way they are getting that kind of money.’ They always would.

Sports is the dominant force for the networks. It’s going to be that way for a long time.

Do you spend much time reading what’s out there on the Internet?

No, not really. I’ll read the Sherman Report (thanks, Rudy).

I just don’t read a lot of media stuff. I’m involved in a lot of fantasy sports leagues. So I stay up on that. We travel a lot. So I read a lot of newspapers when I’m on the road.

Do you know there is a Twitter account in your name? It started as @FakeRudyMartzke, but now it is @RudyMartzke2013.

Yes, my son told me about it. At first, I thought, ‘He’s trying to copy me.’ Then people told me it’s almost like a badge of honor.

I’ve got no complaints with it. It’s a compliment that someone still remembers me.

Hiestand has departed at USA Today. The sports media column has been a staple at the paper. What do you think they will do?

I was very pleased Michael came in and was successful at it. I’m proud of the tradition of the TV Sports column at USA Today.

Early on, I remember once I was in on a Sunday, and the sports editor said, ‘We have no room for your column on Monday.’ Later on, the sports editor called me in. He said Gannett did a survey, and it showed my column was the most read thing in the paper after the weather page. So I was in every Monday after that.

I would hope USA Today continues the column at some stage. If there are stories involving network TV and broadcasting, somebody should write it.

Rudy, it’s been great catching up. If you ever get the itch to vent about something, my space always is available to you at Sherman Report.

Thanks. I might take you up on that.

It is hardly news to say that the job market for sportswriters, young and old, is challenging these days.

However, I was struck by a conversation I had with Adam Lazarus this week. Last fall, I did a Q/A with Adam on his excellent book, Best of Rivals, which chronicled the quarterback battles between Joe Montana and Steve Young in San Francisco.

However, despite writing that book, which was his third, Adam said he hasn’t been able to land a full-time job. He lamented that he may have to do something else if he can’t land anything on the sportswriting front.

The other options hardly are appealing. Adam wants to write and cover sports.

I know Adam is hardly alone. In an effort to provide a snapshot at what is happening within the profession, I asked Adam to give a first-person account of what it is like to be at the crossroads.

********

Two weeks ago, I received an email from a soon-to-be graduate of my alma mater. This young man who contacted me aspires to be a sportswriter and, having read my LinkedIn profile, he thought I could provide advice on how to achieve that goal.

My immediate reaction to this request was to encourage him to chase his dream, much like I did seven years ago. I assumed that he is pursuing this path for the same reasons I did: he loves sports, he loves to write, and he knows that great reporting, great storytelling, and great character portraits will always be a necessity and always be appreciated.

I wanted to be as helpful as possible: I attended a very small college so I felt an instant connection—and a responsibility—although I had never met or heard of him.

But not long after I began writing a reply, I felt another responsibility, a responsibility to tell him “the truth” regarding my sportswriting career. The truth I’ve come to realize is that being a sportswriter is a difficult way to make a living.

My career has been a-traditional and perhaps that accounts for the unusual ups and downs I’ve experienced. I didn’t receive a journalism degree from Syracuse, Northwestern, or Columbia and then follow that with an internship at a print publication.  Instead, after graduating from a small liberal arts school with an English degree, I earned my Masters degree in Professional Writing in 2006. Right after graduate school I was offered an opportunity to co-author a sports history book, about the 1973 U.S. Open.

I thought it would be a unique, fun experience so I jumped at it. I also thought it would be something that set me apart from other candidates when I applied to ESPN or Sports Illustrated or some other sports media outlet. I had this vision of my glossy, full-length, hard cover book, sitting atop some senior editor’s desk, completely overshadowing all the résumés and business cards. But no full-time, regularly paying jobs came from that book; nor did one come from the two additional sports books I wrote over the next three years. I only found sparse freelance work that was rarely consistent or rewarding.

I am tremendously proud of the three non-fiction sports books that I have written. I believe each captures a special piece of sports history and characterizes several fascinating, original people, such as Joe Montana, Steve Young, Bill Parcells, Bill Belichick, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Johnny Miller, and many more.

But despite these books and the national attention they received from many media outlets, they have done very little to land me the type of job I was hoping for when I started out or the type of job I need to provide for a family. My wife (rightfully so) believes that it is time I consider abandoning sportswriting for something more stable.

Now I’m not bitter or angry about this. I know there are many sportswriters out there—with far more experience and accolades than me—who have been laid off, forced to take a buyout, or simply worn down by the frequent budget cuts and downsizing of newspapers and magazines. But that doesn’t brush away the frustrations and disappointments when I hear “we don’t have anything available” or “we’ll keep your résumé on file” after asking a newspaper or website or magazine for an opportunity.

I cherish everything involved with writing about sports. I love interviewing players and coaches, be they national icons or long-since-faded stars from a forgotten era. I love sitting in front of a blank Microsoft Word document and trying to reassemble with words action that took place on a field of play 30 minutes ago or 30 years ago. And I love experiencing that “Eureka!” moment when I conjure up a pithy, clever lede or close a piece with the right dramatic scene that gives readers a moment of pause.

So although the industry is struggling, and that steady gig covering a beat or profiling fascinating sports personalities hasn’t come my way, I (for now) remain optimistic that one will. And even if it doesn’t, I don’t regret the career I’ve chosen: for a sports lover, no other job could have possibly provided me with such fulfillment and excitement, as well as the ideal creative outlet.

That is another “truth” that I hope my young fellow college alumnus soon finds out on his own.

@lazarusa57

www.alazarus.com

As many of us in the business know from first-hand experience, Monday is the first day of the rest of Michael Hiestand’s life.

Last Friday, Hiestand wrote his last sports media column for USA Today. The veteran of 24 years at the paper decided to take a buyout.

Hiestand already knows the next few days might be a bit disorienting.

“Yesterday was Sunday,” Hiestand said. “I’ve worked on almost every Sunday since the Reagan administration. To take a Sunday off was a big deal. Yesterday, I’m thinking, ‘Shouldn’t I be at a Christening or something?”

The good news is that Hiestand is planning his next move. In his final column at USA Today, he stressed he isn’t saying farewell to the business:

But after my final USA TODAY Sports column, the last thing I want to do is decamp to some exotic locale to place enormous casino bets on, say, overnight TV sports ratings. Not that it wouldn’t be easy money, as I’m keeping the secret decoder ring programmed to decipher even the best ratings spin.

Nope, nobody should walk away from the sports business now: It’s more fascinating than ever.

I talked to Michael this morning about his plans and his recollections on a very interesting run in covering sports media for USA Today.

Leaving USA Today: It seems like the interest in sports media is changing all the time. People are trying to figure out what they want to do. I wasn’t bored or burned out. In fact, it was just the opposite. In many ways, I’m more interested than ever before.

The people at USA Today do a good job. There are some good people there. But I’m ready to try some new things. You just want to figure out, ‘What is the right niche for me?’  Having the buyout will give me a little bit of time. It gives me some time away from the everyday deadlines.

The incomparable Rudy Martzke: The first thing I think about with Rudy is that whenever I talked to someone in the business, they all felt like they had to tell me a Rudy Martzke story. The funny thing is, if Rudy was starting now, he would be incredible on Twitter. He would be talking to these people all day long. He would get these interesting items and he would want to tweet them right away. If you look at where the media is now, Rudy was way ahead of his time.

Memorable moments: The thing I found interesting was doing features on (announcers and analysts). Everyone thinks they know these guys because you hear them on TV all the time. But then you would find out stuff that you didn’t know about them.

When Pat Summerall died, I went back and found an old clip of a story I did on him. Initially, he said he didn’t want to talk about his battle with alcoholism, but he eventually opened up. He talked about a night at the Masters where he felt like he was seeing angels.

To me, it was interesting to see these people in a different light.

His favorite assignment: I spent a year in Australia (prior to the 2000 Olympics). I loved everything about it. Over there, I became known as “the American who loves Australia.’ During the Olympics, I even had an (Australian) TV crew following me around.

I wanted to stay there. I suggested opening up an Australian bureau. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out.

An observation: Right now, there are so many cliches about sports. People just run them instead of talking to people to find out the real stories. The real stories are much more interesting.

His plans: I’m going to move to New York (from D.C.). I have talked to some people, but I don’t have anything specifically in mind. I am open to ideas.

One of the best things about the new movie, 42, is that it has exposed a new generation to Wendell Smith.

The movie actually understated Smith’s role in bringing Jackie Robinson to the big leagues. In fact, without Smith, it is possible the world never hears about Robinson, or at least in the context we know of him today.

It was Smith, an African-American sportswriter, who pushed for the integration of baseball in the late 30s and 40s. It was Smith who recommended Robinson ahead of other Negro League stars to Branch Rickey.

Go ahead and name another sportswriter who had a greater impact on sports and society than Wendell Smith. You can’t.

I wrote a column about Smith’s legacy for Indiana University’s National Sports Journalism Center site. It contains Smith’s own words from a first-person chapter in Jerome Holtzman’s classic book, No Cheering in the Press Box. He said:

“When I think back, it was absolutely fantastic; all the things we went through,” he said in Holtzman’s book. “I still think about it; it’s hard to conceive. Going into a town and finding a decent place to stay was not easy in those days. Eating in the places we ate, second and third rate. Always having this stigma hanging over your head.

“But I knew Jackie would make it. And I knew if he made it, things had to open up.”

The movie also prompted others to write about Smith this week. Bill Plaschke in the Los Angeles Times talked to Don Newcombe:

Smith would become angry only when Robinson refused his help, at which point Smith would remind the star that he was enduring the same racial slights, only without the stardom.

“We would see Wendell sitting up there in the black bleachers typing his story. They wouldn’t even let him in the press box, it was worse than you could ever imagine,” Newcombe said. “Everything we went through, Wendell went through the same thing.”

Eric Deegans, also writing in the National Sports Journalism Center site, had this passage:

But activists like Smith knew the best strategy for winning over white people involved presenting seminal figures like Robinson as average, middle class guys just trying to earn an honest living. So coverage in the Courier encouraged black fans to conduct themselves well at games and Smith’s work downplayed the ugly impact of incidents such as Chapman’s taunts.

“It was Smith more than anyone who created the impression that Robinson was untroubled by the victimization, that he was letting the insults roll off his back when, in fact, he was absorbing them like blows to the gut,” wrote (Jonathan Eig in his book, Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson’s First Season). “Robinson was never going to be baseball’s Ghandi, but Smith helped create the illusion of serenity, at least for one season.”

“I always tried to keep it from becoming a flamboyant, highly militant thing,” said Smith in quotes published in Eig’s book (the sportswriter, who was inducted into the Baseball Hall of fame in 1994, died in 1972). “And I think that’s why it succeeded.”

Dave Hoekstra of the Chicago Sun-Times had recollections from Smith’s wife:

“What Jackie Robinson did was for all of us,” she said. ‘We were concerned about segregation because we all suffered it. It was terrible. White people said ‘git’ and Wendell left. What else could they do?”

Wyonella’s voice trailed off through the fog across the lake and she whispered again, “What else could they do?”

Bryant Gumbel recalled Smith’s impact on him in his closing commentary for HBO’s Real Sports. Smith eventually became a broadcaster for WGN in Chicago.

More importantly to me, it was Smith, who in 1964 became a local sports anchor with WGN-TV in Chicago – the first person of color in a position of authority ever seen on television by yours truly, who at the time was an impressionable sports-minded teenager on the south side of the city. Given my limited skill set, I knew back then that while I couldn’t be a Jackie Robinson, I could become a Wendell Smith. Of such small occasions are big dream born, and memories made, some of which still linger.

And one more. Last year, Ben Strauss in the New York Times wrote a terrific piece about the friendship between the widows of Smith and Bill Veeck.

Both men are honored in the Hall of Fame. Both are long dead. But the bond between the two women is still strong, and as they proceed together in the 10th decade of their lives, they remain a charming and enduring symbol of their husbands’ efforts to push the sport forward.

They can, it should be noted, also banter like ballplayers.

“That is just lovely,” Mrs. Veeck said to Mrs. Smith as she pointed to a dress that a young woman nearby was wearing. “I think that’s something I’d like to do — work in a ladies’ department store and help dress the girls of today.”

Mrs. Smith said, “I think you’d be good at it.”