Well - that was my introduction

Hard to believe that was over two years ago. I had a lot of fun cranking out those entries for mLive. But, when the request came to shorten the entries, but to blog more frequently, well, it was time to give it a rest.

So, I signed out.

Thanks to web.archive.org, you can still access those two years of entries, including my signoff.

I wasn't built to move that fast
Many years ago, a former boss reminded me that it is impossible to serve two masters.

I believe I now have five.

Welcome to today’s special edition of “For the Record”.

Well - after two years of incessant babbling on the beauty of prep sports, I've come to a conclusion.

The time has come for me to step aside.

The realization arrived the other night as I sat on the couch watching Bugs Bunny cartoons with my sons before bedtime. With one on each side, we laughed at the zany antics of my personal animation favorites. Each character is a comic genius. Of course, so were the artists that brought them to life.

In the back of my mind was the knowledge that I needed to dream up a weekly feature for the blog. Something that would keep readers on the edge of their seat, causing them to dash to the site like Ralphie in A Christmas Story did for the latest Little Orphan Annie melodrama on radio.

In the ultra-competitive world of websites, you see, eyeballs mean everything.

As I pondered the thought, I had to confront an issue that I've been wrestling with for some time now.

At what cost do I chase information for my hobby?

Looking across the room, I was reminded that we still hadn't taken down the Christmas tree.

Checking out my waistline, I was reminded that I need more physical activity, and more home-cooked meals.

A glance at the calendar says spring is not far away.

The time had arrived for some good old-fashioned cost-analysis.

A look at my oldest son reminded me that he enters high school next year. Granted, high school now starts in ninth grade, but that tells me I have as little as four years left to continue to try and impact his life in a positive manner on a daily basis.

A look at my youngest son reminded me that he enters middle school next year. His brother is his best friend, and in four years, that friend may trot off to college.

I have work to do. Neurotic Mom - can you offer any advice?

My self-imposed demands for the blog reduce the number of hours that I have available after my day at work. While I'll never be the type to constantly hover over the shoulders of my kids, I still spend far too much time in my struggles to write the perfect incomplete sentence. My pursuit of the proper word in this continued quest to butcher the English language seems endless.

Before you know it, it is 10:00 p.m. Kids should be in bed. My 5:00 a.m. alarm will be going off before I know it.

Did Jamie complete his Algebra 2 homework? Did I sign Evan's journal? Can it really be February?

My hobbies will never pay for my children's college educations. With luck, student loans, academic scholarships and perhaps my day job will provide for that. Maybe, I need to consider writing novels about imaginary visits with long-passed family members.

Anyway...

After two years of scribbling my thoughts, the time has come to step aside. After much consideration, I'm ready to pursuit other opportunities that life has to offer.

Thank you for allowing me free reign in designing what has appeared, and for allowing me the chance to move in a multitude of directions. Thank you for sharing your comments, information and kind words. Thanks for accepting my missteps, missing words and overall imperfections.

I hope that my rambling style has provided an occasional laugh, and a chance to revisit a hero or a moment from the past. Heaven only knows where I would be without Scorsese, Springsteen, Costello, Keaton or Kishpaugh.

As I stated in the beginning, the greatest joy of this hobby comes in the form of the people that I get to meet and converse with about this pageantry and purity known as high school sports.

Ideally, that will never change.

The Record Books are meant to be a place to highlight the amazing accomplishments of the state's extraordinary and ordinary athletes. A place to point to and say, "Remember when..." In my eyes, records should happen naturally - a situation where, in the pursuit of victory, an amazing accomplishment occurs.

It's a philosophy that I will always hold. I hope you will too.

Please keep me updated with additions and of course, corrections. I'll try to post the information in a timely fashion.

With the miracle known as the internet, and search engines like Google, I'm not hard to find.

I hope this is not the last day of our acquaintance.

My name is Ron Pesch. It was very nice to meet you…

In between, I "met" a host of wonderful readers, who took the time to contact me. Mark Behnke (who produced a great documentary on Hamilton's 1984 state basketball champs), Atif Lodhi, Matt DeYoung, Chris Gonzales, Bob Erkkila, Chris Givens, Jim Goebel, Andy Clark - my personal proofreader, of course Tim Barrett - who ranks among my top three all-time favorite employees at UPS, and many, many others.

Websites and connections at newspapers across the state were my "resources" for great information: Doug Donnelly at the Monroe Evening News (who, BTW, put out a GREAT book covering High School Basketball in the Monroe area), Dave Bossick, who is now stationed in Wisconsin, Chris Lau, Tom Lang, and the Son of Swami, Mick McCabe, at the Detroit Free Press, Tom Markowski, Terry Foster, the late Joe Falls, the long forgotten Richard Remington and many others at the Detroit News, mLive staff and their affiliates at the Ann Arbor News (Rich) , the Bay City Times (Bruce Gunther - now in flint, I think), the Flint Journal, (especially Bill Khan), the Grand Rapids Press (thanks Jane and Mary), the Jackson Citizen Patriot (Mike, Gary, and the rest of the staff), the Kalamazoo Gazette, (thank to Jack Moss, and of course the retired but still working Del Newell), the Muskegon Chronicle, (Tom Mike, Cindy, Ron and the as well as a number of fold in the newsroom!) and the Saginaw News, (Hugh, among others!) , the guys at the Lansing State Journal (Geoff) as well as many unknowns at small dailies and weeklies and the staff of the MHSAA.

Well, I guess it's time to stick my toes back in those blogging waters again, abet, this time at my own pace.

There have been many changes since my departure. I'm sure I'll touch on a number of them in upcoming entries.

In the meantime...

My name is Ron Pesch - and I endorse this message.