Stefanie Spielman’s Inspirational Story

My newest article, This Is Not a Football Story was just posted on The Burnside Writer’s Collective today.

I’ve been completely swamped with freelance projects recently, but I temporarily pushed those projects aside (sorry to those editors still waiting on my assignments) to write this article, which was not assigned to me and for which I will not be compensated (sorry to my wife who would probably like to see me making money). But I made this article a priority because I felt like the content needed to be shared with a wider audience.

Stefanie Spielman (the wife of Buckeye great Chris Spielman) died of breast cancer last Thursday, and on Friday, I was profoundly touched when I heard her story on the radio. In the last few days, I’ve learned that many in this area (and beyond) have been touched by Stefanie (and Chris) Spielman. This story has been big in central Ohio, where the Spielmans live, but I wanted to share it with a wider audience.

(Thanks to the Burnside folks for being willing to put this up on such short notice—and for trusting me when I said I had a piece I wanted to get online right away.)

In the article—which is really more like an essay—I wrote in the first person, and I almost changed that. I wanted the story to be about Stefanie and Chris—not about me. (For the same reason, I removed the names of the radio broadcasters on 97.1 The Fan, and I didn’t include the quotes from Lance Armstrong, Archie Griffin, or Jim Tressel in which they commented on Stefanie’s passing.)

But I left myself in the article because I felt like it showed how their story impacted me—a real person—just as I experienced the way their story impacted the people who called into the radio station I was listening to last Friday.

I don’t think I did the story justice…but I hope I did a good enough job to give you a glimpse of Chris and Stefanie Spielman. I don’t know them, but from the glimpses I’ve seen in the last week, they’re pretty remarkable.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it: This Is Not a Football Story.

Another (boring) Article

Another one of my articles was recently posted online.

Now, I know I promised, after my article about data storage (which came shortly after my article on wireless mic restrictions), that my newer articles would be more interesting. And well, I’m not sure anyone will believe I’ve followed through on that promise with this newest article:

“Seats With Substance” printed in the most recent issue of Your Church.

The article is an overview of flexible seating options (i.e. chairs) for churches. So no, it’s not going to win me a Pulitzer or the Nobel Prize for Literature, but hopefully it will be helpful for some church community out there.

And it’s one of the many articles for which I’ve recently interviewed people, and from which I’ve learned a lot—and gotten paid. So I’m not complaining. I’m going to compile a blog post sometime soon highlighting the things I’ve learned about the art of interviewing people. And if that also bores you, then let me say two things:

1) Maybe you shouldn’t be checking my blog. 🙂

2) More interesting articles are coming. I promise… (well, and some more boring ones, too)