In the spring of 2017, I was freelance writing for a now-defunct suburban magazine where my first feature assignment was to sit down with legendary sports commentator Terry Boers.
Though I know little to nothing about sports, our three-hour conversation transcended the topic. Now, I’d like to share this conversation with you. Due to space, this story has to be broken into two parts. See next weekend’s Daily Journal for Part II.
<em>In 1960’s Chicago Heights, a young Terry Boers was leaving class at Bloom High School. As he was exiting the classroom, his teacher approached him with something that would unknowingly change his life.</em>
<em>“Terry,” she said. “Have you ever considered creative writing as a career?”</em>
<em>With this question, she went on to compliment the work he’d done for class, which came as a surprise to Boers who did not have his sights set on anything in particular. This simple conversation began paving the path which Boers’ career took.</em>
<em>Now, sitting at in a booth at Lume’s Pancake House in Frankfort, Boers looks back on his lengthy career, and seven decade-long relationship with sports, with humility and humor. Known for his 25-year stint on WSCR’s The Score, coupled with a 25-year gig working for the Chicago Sun Times, this recently retired radio host is still letting it sink in that people have enjoyed his work.</em>
<em>“You never know what people really think. Its still amazing to me that he thought I was good,” he says in reference to his former editor John E. Meyers. “[Writing] was never something [I thought about wanting]. If you want something all your life and then you find out you’re no good at it … I mean, that’s why I never wanted anything.”</em>
<em>Boers first worked for the Lansing Sun Journal in 1972 and would eventually go to the Sun Times in 1980. He began working a desk job and was warned by multiple editors never to request to write. However, writer Richard Justice was tasked to take on a column about the Chicago Bulls but opted to take a job at the Washington Post the night before the column was to start. Left in a bind, Boers’ editor asked him to take over.</em>
<em>“I think life is full of fate. I didn’t think Richard Justice would make my career, I’ve sent him notes since then saying ‘thank you’ because without [him] I never would’ve had this job,” Boers reflects. “[Justice] said, ‘Oh, you would’ve eventually had one,’ and I said ‘Yeah, but some people wait on eventually forever and it never happens.’”</em>