On Saturday, Garrett Christian, a longtime member of the sports department at the Waterbury Republican-American, died unexpectedly at his home.
I met Garrett when I jumped on board at the Rep-Am back in 2002 and he could not have been nicer to me. He was always fun to work with.
My main job was taking phone calls from coaches reporting local high school scores. Trust me, it’s not as easy as you think.
First of all, you rarely get full participation from the coaches. Some forget to call, some call with minimal and sometimes useless info, others just flat out refuse to call. It was our job to get the scores and highlights from each of the games listed on the scoreboard page you read everyday. When deadline is looming and you’re still waiting for a coach to get back to you, it can be very stressful.
Despite that, Garrett always kept a positive attitude. If you read this blog regularly and are familiar with my stances on the Yankees, you know patience is not a strength of mine. Garrett, though, never let tough situations get to him and kept his cool every night. I always admired that.
Last Friday, I covered the Watertown-Crosby football game for the Rep-Am and arrived at the office around 9:45 p.m. With a lighter schedule thanks to the on-going state tournaments, Garrett left a little early and I missed seeing him by a few minutes.
A few hours later, he tragically passed away. Just a terrible, terrible loss.
Roger Cleaveland wrote a great piece on Garrett yesterday on rep-am.com. Please take a few minutes and give it a read. Thanks.
