Forethoughts: Summer Called, Some Aren’t

Jon Rizzi

I used to love summer. Then I got this job.

The season to which I once looked most forward—bountiful daylight to play golf, run, work the garden, sit by the pool—has, for the past 15 years brought long days in the office writing and editing stories about one of those pursuits.

I turn down far more golf invitations than I accept. This results in getting to play around three times per month—and those rounds usually amount to a busman’s holiday because I’m usually taking notes or interviewing someone.

But you have to make hay while the sun shines. Starting in March, the deadlines for this publication telescope into each other like a six-car pileup on the interstate. By August, when the last of our monthly editions heads to the printer, our entire staff feels as if we’ve survived another wreck. We always immediately head to the golf course to celebrate.

Before you tell me to get some cheese for my whine, understand that I’m not trolling for pity. To paraphrase Hyman Roth in The Godfather, Part II, this is the business I’ve chosen.

Sometimes it feels as though it’s chosen me, a calling to the clergy. My parents have a photo of a four-year-old me “reading” the Sunday New York Times Magazine. By high school, I was covering sports for my hometown newspaper and actually getting paid to do it. 

Those clips sit amid thousands of others in my files, evidence of destiny’s preordination.

I was reminded of this when Joel Klatt’s parents, Gary and Rita, stopped by our offices to drop off some photos for this issue’s cover story. Among the albums were an “autobiography” written by Joel at age 10 and numerous other self-reflections.

I’d never embarrass him by quoting them here. Suffice to say, they reveal someone predestined to be an athlete who followed that calling with ferocity, first in professional baseball and then college football.

As we saw during his years at the University of Colorado—where as a walk-on he set numerous records as starting quarterback over three seasons—Klatt never shrank from big situations, not even when they involved grillings by reporters during the program’s embattled 2005 season.

Klatt has since become part of the media, channeling his calling as a competitive athlete into broadcasting. His skills as an analyst and play-by-play man have led to his new position as FOX Sports’ lead game broadcaster alongside Gus Johnson.

Golf is T-1 with college football on Klatt’s leaderboard. A self-taught, self-professed “golf freak” who has played to a 1, Klatt also provided digital play-by-play with Steve Flesch during last month’s U.S. Open at Oakmont. Only a matter of time, it seems, stands in the way of his ascension to Fox’s television broadcast team.

But as contributor Sam Adams learns in his profile, Klatt takes nothing for granted. He’s battled the demons of depression and alcoholism, and an almost compulsive fear of failure informs his approach to his job and his life.

And to his golf game. He says the demands of the job and his young family don’t leave much time to play.

I can empathize. I mean, the poor guy’s currently playing to a six. Like that’s something to whine about. -— JON RIZZI

More “Forethoughts” from editor Jon Rizzi:

Forethoughts: Filling the Bucket

Forethoughts: Healthy Concerns

Golf Done to a Turn

It Happens Every Spring

Colorado AvidGolfer is the state’s leading resource for golf and the lifestyle that surrounds it, publishing eight issues annually and proudly delivering daily content via coloradoavidgolfer.com. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

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