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I still remember the first time I arrived in Cherokee County, or at least what I thought was Cherokee County.
After being offered the job as sports writer at the Cherokee Scout, I had to see Murphy, N.C., for myself. Moving from a suburb 30 minutes north of Baltimore, Md., to the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains was not something I could just pack up and do sight unseen.
So I flew to Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, got a rental car and plugged in the directions to Harrah’s Casino in my GPS, thinking it would take me to Murphy – only I didn’t know there was another Harrah’s in Cherokee, which is where the navigation system took me. So, after learning I went to the wrong hotel, I drove the hour-plus down the Great Smoky Mountain Expressway and Nantahala Gorge into Murphy.
It was a winding trip in the darkness through what at the time was a great unknown. Now it’s time to journey into the next great unknown. Friday was my last day at the Scout.
It’s a bittersweet departure. This was my first full-time job, the chance to prove I could do what I’d wanted to do in some form since I was 10 years old. No more waiting on freelance assignments. Just me carrying around a camera, laptop, notebook and rosters to games throughout western North Carolina.
Two days after I started in April 2021, I was in Robbinsville for Murphy football’s final regular-season game. One month later, I was on the field at Carter-Finley Stadium in Raleigh as David Gentry ended his legendary coaching career by leading the Bulldogs to a 10th state championship.
I witnessed history on the eastern side of the county as well, with the Andrews football team beating Murphy for the first time in 40 years on Oct. 29, 2021. It was the first time since taking the job that I really felt pressure to nail the story.
If anyone wanted to go back and read coverage from that game, they’d be looking at what I wrote. That win was only the prelude to 364 days later, when the Wildcats dominated the Bulldogs to win their first Smoky Mountain Conference championship since 1983.
If anyone wants to know what sports can mean to small towns, it’s hard to find a better example of that night. The Andrews team did a postgame lap around the visitors stands, high-fiving fans who packed the bleachers well ahead of the 7:30 p.m. kickoff.
Though football is the most popular sport here, they weren’t the only teams who had success.
In my time here, teams in our coverage area won 15 conference regular season and tournament championships, two 1A West regional championships and a state championship. On the individual level, there were 50 conference champions, 17 regional champions and nine state champions.
I won’t just miss the sports, but also the Blue Ridge Mountains. It’s rare to live somewhere you can get just as good a view going on a hike as you can just driving on the highway. Any time I left the area and was returning back to my apartment in Andrews, seeing the familiar green mountains in the distance always made me smile.
I never thought I’d be in a place like Cherokee County, and I can say the same for my next job. I’m heading 2,000 miles northwest to Twin Falls, Idaho, to be the new sports reporter at the Twin Falls Times-News. It’s another place packed with natural beauty, outdoor opportunities and sports to cover.
So thank you to everyone who read the sports section in my time at the Scout, the coaches and athletes who dealt with my meandering questions in postgame interviews, the fans and parents I talked with at games, and the staff who made it such a great first job.
Not every small community is passionate about sports like this one, and not every small community has a newspaper like the Scout that takes pride in keeping residents informed about what goes on in their backyards. It’s something I won’t take for granted as I head west, and I hope people here don’t either.
I feel incredibly lucky to have been a small part of it.
Justin Fitzgerald was sports writer of the Cherokee Scout until Saturday. His replacement has not been named. We wish him well.