For the last two weeks at Mentor High, students have the opportunity to shadow someone who works in a particular field that they are interested in. I chose to shadow Bill Tilton, partly because I'm very interested in sports and also because I'm familiar with Bill after he's covered my games for the past four years. Last Monday I began shadowing Bill along with another student from school and began learning what it's like to be a sports writer for a popular newspaper. One thing I learned very quickly is that the job can be very unpredictable, especially during baseball season. The first day was spent in the office due to a couple rained out games that we were supposed to be covering. Then the very next day, we covered a game at Hawken right after we had a horse racing interview in Willoughby. It was delayed for an hour because of rain and lightening and then ended in a tie three hours later because it got too dark. Over four hours spent at the game to see a tie! The rest of the week ran smoothly with no more rain. We covered the district tournament at Euclid High School and got to see some real good games. Bill did most most of the work while I either kept score in the book or helped him out with anything he needed.
I started off my second week of senior project attending Bill's Monday talk show "Chalk Talk" at Hooley House in Mentor. There wasn't much for me to do but I got a front row seat of how everything was set up and how the show was ran. With no games Tuesday, we both had the day off. Then once again, the rain started up again. Both the Wednesday and Thursday game we were supposed to cover were rained out. As long as the rain doesn't continue Friday, we will be heading to Hudson to see Lake Catholic play their regional semi-final game. This will be my last day of senior project and I'd say I'm very happy I chose to do it with Bill Tilton and the News Herald. I learned quite a few things about the life of a sports writer and it was a great experience.

- Cole Krizancic