In his first column for the Charleston Daily Mail in 2002, Jack Bogaczyk ended with these words: I'll column like I see 'em.
It was his message to readers here and beyond that, while he'd inform and enlighten and entertain, most of all he'd be fair.
Bogaczyk, 66, enjoyed his first day of retirement on Friday. Well, if you think a 7 a.m. dentist appointment on first day of retirement is enjoyable. Bogaczyk's exit is noteworthy because it has been 45 years since he graduated from the University of Kentucky and entered the sports media business.
"The first story I ever had to appear in a daily newspaper was 1966," he said. "I was a sophomore in high school. If you want to go with that, it's 50 years."
Fifty years. F-I-F-T-Y.
In 1966, gas was 32 cents per gallon. Lyndon B. Johnson was president. The first episode of Star Trek aired. Texas Western won the NCAA men's basketball championship.
And one Jacob Bogaczyk had started down a path that would make him one of the most decorated sportswriters to call these West Virginia hills home.
Bogaczyk's final day at Marshall University, where he was the director of publications and editor of Herd Insider, was Thursday. He wrote more than 1,000 stories in his four years since leaving the Daily Mail, and he relished his role as a mentor. He is still the most influential person in my short career.
At the National Sports Media Association awards banquet last week, yours truly sat in a room and watched former Sports Illustrated sportswriter Gary Smith get inducted into the Hall of Fame. Smith's longtime friend and colleague, Rick Reilly, is already in the organization's Hall. Reilly attended the event to support Smith.
Those are two well-known scribes who've unknowingly put their fingerprints on my work. Bogaczyk, however, has been a much more critical component - he hired me, coached me, developed me.
"I've always been really interested in trying to mentor people because I'm interested in the business, the journalism business, the newspaper business," Bogaczyk said. "Whatever you want to call it now - the media business."
The NSMA has recognized Bogaczyk three times as this state's Sportswriter of the Year, and it could've been many, many more. In his 45-year career as a writer - and a stint as the media relations manager for the NBDL's Roanoke Dazzle - Bogaczyk has been honored by the Associated Press Sports Editors, United States Basketball Writers Association, Football Writers Association of America and the press associations in Virginia and West Virginia.
He has been to the Olympics, Super Bowl, World Series, Daytona 500, Final Four and scarfed down a lifetime supply of hot dogs in press boxes all across the country. There can't be many items he didn't cross off his bucket list.
"I didn't start out to do this," Bogaczyk said. "I thought I was going to be a school teacher. Once I started doing it ... it kind of went from being, I don't know, it struck a chord with me and it went from being a passion to being a profession.
"It's all I ever wanted to do."
That attitude was infectious. He promoted a culture of perfectionism. If you worked for Jack, you didn't want to let him down. You didn't want that early morning phone call that ended with "go back to sleep." He once called me "Little Bogaczyk." Those are lofty expectations.
This isn't intended to read like an obituary for one man's life work. It is meant to shine a light on what he contributed to the newspaper industry and to sports journalism as a reporter, editor and columnist. It'll be a legacy that far outlasts the ink-stained pages that displayed his bylines for parts of six decades.
No, this is a column to assert that Bogaczyk belongs beside the best names to ever craft a sports story here in the Mountain State. Other Sportswriter of the Year winners like Dick Hudson, Shorty Hardman, Bill Smith, Doug Huff, Mickey Furfari, Danny Wells, Dan Hose and Alan Robinson, plus plenty of others still pecking away at the keys on a regular basis.
Around these parts, Bogaczyk was as good or better than all of them.
I, too, column like I see 'em.
Contact Chuck McGill at 304-348-7949 or chuck.mcgill@wvgazettemail.com. Follow him on Twitter @chuckmcgill.