Blog

Talk about the dog days of summer. Florida has tested my endurance this year. We had a dozen days in a row of 95 degrees or higher before the temp dipped to 87 degrees yesterday. It was a wonderful relief. Before that, there were dozens of sweltering days in what I’m calling our hottest summer in twenty years of Florida living. We will have fifty or more before Autumn arrives.

I had a bit of outpatient surgery this month. So, I have hovered inside for the past couple of weeks. It gave me time...

Trailblazing Bill White was breaking into Major League Baseball when I was learning my ABCs. I don’t recall watching him play first base in the 1964 World Series for the St. Louis Cardinals or coveting his Topps baseball card. Nonetheless, he became a trailblazer and legend for a generation of baseball fans.

White was from my hometown, Warren (OH), and a graduate of Warren G. Harding High School. Anyone who could read and write was aware that he played first base in the big leagues for more...

I’m having trouble understanding the loathing authors seem to be lobbing at AI these days. I’ve read threads on social media sites that encourage others not to endorse novels written with help from artificial intelligence. I think it’s very much like “spitting into the wind,” to borrow a phrase from Jim Croce.

Perhaps I need to set the stage so anyone reading this will understand. I am a Baby Boomer and old-time newspaper guy. I’m seventy-six years young and have written more than thirty...

I began my sportswriting career under Dick Olmstead, who taught me about the importance of history. Olmstead was a fanatic about recordkeeping, and if anybody dared to say some new young athlete was great, he was quick to say, “Let me tell you about Paul Warfield, Bill White, and William McKinley.

Warfield and White graduated from Warren Harding High School long before there was a need for a second high school. While both had legendary prep careers, it was their post-graduate work that was...

Fighting Back, the next installment of the McIntyre Adventures, will debut on Friday, July 3, just in time for the big Sesquicentennial celebration. As readers will recall, Gus and his friends are rushing back to Texas after receiving a telegram that stated there was trouble at the Circle H Ranch.

Meet Flemming Ibbara, an immigrant from Spain who keeps to himself while trying to refurbish a small farm on the outskirts of Santa Angela, Texas. He works his farm during the early monring hours and...

Fighting Back, the next installment of the McIntyre Adventures, will debut on July 3, just in time for the big Sesquicentennial celebration. As readers will recall, Gus and his friends are rushing back to Texas after receiving a telegram that indicated there was trouble at the Circle H Ranch.

From the mountain ranges of Colorado, the journey is not easy. The Raton Pass, especially, is rugged and unforgiving. The trail they follow leads upward into the clouds, where they find thin air, loose...

Fans who are familiar with my McIntyre Adventure series of novels will be happy to learn I’m well on my way with the next release in the popular storyline. I expect it to be released sometime next month.

In Fighting Back, Gus McIntyre and Walter Hamilton are rushing back to Texas after an extended stay in Colorado when they receive an ominous telegram from the Circle H Ranch that says: “Hurry home, Junior. We’ve got trouble!”

Making it through the mountainous wilderness isn’t easy, but the...

While many Warren fans anticipated and praised Paul Trina’s choice of Steve Arnold as the next Harding head football coach in the winter of 2011, the timing was horrible. The announcement was made in late November, shortly after the end of the 2011 football season and just weeks before the launch of the 2011-12 basketball campaign. As usual, Steve and his coaches showed up for afternoon basketball practice, but got a big surprise. It went something like this:

After a long day of media demands,...

Steve Arnold spent almost forty years guiding the lives of student-athletes in Warren, Ohio. He had won 190 games in ten seasons as Warren G. Harding High School’s head basketball coach. Meanwhile, the football team was struggling. Athletic Director Paul Trina asked him to cross over and take the reins of the Raiders’ gridiron fortunes in 2012. It wasn’t an easy transition. The autumn warriors lacked discipline, respect, and commitment. That changed the first time Arnold met with the team.

...

When I received a cold call from Steve Arnold in July of 2025 and agreed to assist him in writing this autobiography, I had no idea what lay ahead. How hard could it be? I had been writing stories my entire adult life as a sportswriter, sports editor, managing editor, and editor-in-chief.

Since retiring from the newspaper industry with failing eyesight in 2004, I remained active, writing hundreds of short stories and commentaries on a variety of subjects. I had authored more than thirty...

WARREN, Ohio — A compelling new autobiography, Born to Lead, tells the remarkable story of Coach Steve Arnold — a trailblazer, mentor, and life coach whose legacy extends far beyond the playing field.

In Born to Lead, readers are taken inside the life of a man who made history as the first African American head basketball coach for Warren City Schools in 2002. He topped that in 2012 by becoming the first minority head football coach. He guided both programs to extraordinary success. But this...

I had the privilege of assisting Coach Steve Arnold, a trailblazer in athletics at Warren G. Harding High School, in writing his autobiography. The process has taken almost one year. Today, I am happy to announce that the novel, BORN TO LEAD, will debut on May 30. Watch for it at Amazon and for more information in the days to come. It is an amazing story.

https://www.amazon.com/Born-Lead-Trailblazer-Mentor-Coach-ebook/dp/B0GXXPLXFC