How a West Coast kid ended up in Poplar Bluff covering sports

At the beginning of October, I received a Twitter message from the Daily American Republic sports editor, Brian Rosener. A month and a half later, I was covering a Three Rivers basketball doubleheader with him.

I was asked to write an introductory column so here it goes.

The DAR is my second stop after graduating from Valparaiso University — a small school in northwest Indiana about an hour away from Chicago that got its name on the map thanks to a buzzer-beater against Ole Miss in the 1998 NCAA Tournament.

Before starting this past week, I was writing copy, shooting photos and driving all over western Kentucky for The Messenger in Madisonville in the sports department for a little over two and a half years — with a six month hiatus due to COVID-19 in 2020.

As for my background in sports, I’ve been a sports fan for as long as I can remember with baseball being my first love. I’m originally from southern California so I’m an Angels fan — for the record, I do not agree with how Albert Pujols’ time in an Angels uniform ended — and hockey has always entertained me during the winter so I’m also an Anaheim Ducks fan.

I then moved away from the west coast to Indianapolis before I started high school and have adopted the Colts as my NFL team. I’m also a fan of college basketball with Valpo being the main team I follow, but I still get excited when any Mid-Major program can steal the national spotlight from Kentucky or Duke for a little while because college basketball is awesome.

Like so many other sports scribes in this industry, I grew up playing sports. I played baseball up until sophomore year in high school, basketball off and on through middle school and I’ve played golf my whole life — playing competitively on the high school golf team my junior and senior years.

When I’m not in the office or covering games, I like to hit the links when the weather allows it or you’ll probably see me at the dog park with my Lab/Australian Shepherd mix making me throw a tennis ball until I need Tommy John surgery.

I’ve already dived into telling the stories of a couple local high schools and Three Rivers, but I’m looking forward to writing and telling more sports stories from this community.

You can drop me a follow on Twitter @semoballRobert and send me story ideas through my DM or by email at raugsdorfer.dar@gmail.com .