J.D. Larson: The Natural

By Peter Tormey

Now and again professors come across students who are so exceptional that they simply point them in the right direction and get out of their way. J.D. Larson, from the small town of Cheney, Wash., a 15-minute drive from Spokane, is one such student.

Larson aspires to be a sportswriter – but not just any sportswriter, a great one like the late Jim Murray of the Los Angeles Times or the late Walter "Red" Smith, another Pulitzer Prize winner who wrote for The New York Herald-Tribune and The New York Times. Both writers were known not merely for accuracy and color but for their literary skills and ability to make universal connections between sports and life.

"I'd like to be great at writing and great at sportswriting – if that's possible and have an effect on people," said Larson, a senior this fall who is pursuing a double major in journalism and history specifically to be able to have the educational breadth and depth necessary to elevate his sports journalism to great literature. "I am trying to get that knowledge to help me in journalism. One thing about Gonzaga, Professor (Tom) Miller says they make it so we can do other things besides journalism so they are not just cranking out people who can write but people who can put things into context. It's a lot easier to put things into context if you understand the past and understand the way things have been. If you can do that, you can get people to read your stuff who aren't even sports fans."

Joe Palmquist, sports editor for The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, said Larson is among the best young writers he has ever seen. Larson has worked part time at the newspaper editing copy and covering some sporting events, including the State B High School Basketball Tournament.

"I predict great things for J.D. Larson," Palmquist said. "We have had hundreds of journalism students from the area colleges working for us on a part-time basis. Many have gone on to establish themselves in the journalism world. J.D. ranks among the best young talent I've had the pleasure of working with. He's a natural."

Larson has been interested in sports ever since he can remember. At Cheney High School, he played football, baseball and basketball.

"I've always been a sports guy ever since I was 2 years old watching the Cubs in the summer," he said. "Then, as I got older, it translated into thinking that since I couldn't play for a career, I could write and follow sports for a career."

Talk about maturity, he even turned down chances to play basketball at Eastern Oregon and baseball at St. Martin's – fearing it would get in the way of his journalistic pursuits.

"I had committed myself here and I wasn't going to give up the chance for a really good education just to prolong an athletic career," he said. "I know that I wouldn't be in the position that I am in now if I had done that."

That commitment already is paying off for Larson. After the school year ended this spring, he traveled to the Jim Murray Sports Journalism Workshop in Los Angeles offered by the Los Angeles Times. The highly competitive workshop is by invitation-only to approximately two dozen college students nationwide. The workshop included students from such major universities as UCLA, Northwestern and Indiana.

"Professor Miller thinks it's a pretty neat thing that with all the students from the big universities going that there is a guy from little Gonzaga going too," Larson said. "You get to interact with a lot of very good sportswriters and very important people. If this is what you want to do with your career, this is definitely the kind of place where you want to be accepted."

After that workshop, Larson headed to the University of Nebraska in Lincoln for a two-week orientation before reporting to The Denver Postfor a summer job in the sports department as a copy editor that ended in mid-August. He received the prestigious internship through the highly competitive Dow Jones Foundation.

For a time, Larson struggled between sportswriting and sports broadcasting but ultimately concluded thatthe written word could be more powerful than the spoken word.

"I started realizing how much more of an effect on people writing can have," Larson recalls. "Words can be a lot more permanent than being on the radio yelling about things. If something really makes an impression on you, you can clip it out and put it on the fridge or something."

Two books that he read after his freshman year, "White Boy Shuffle" and "Catch-22," cemented his decision to pursue print journalism.

"Both books showed me the power of writing," he said. "I was affected by the books and struck by how much they made me think and stayed with me long after I read them. That is what I want to do. I don't want to be just another guy, I want to affect people and make a difference somehow. I figured this was the best way to go about it and still enjoy what I am doing. If you can wake up and be happy about where you are going and happy about what you're doing, then you are living right."

He describes his decision to attend Gonzaga as "kind of a blind stab" that worked out.

"It came down to schools that had journalism programs and I just decided that I wanted to be here and that I liked what was going on here," he said. "I had heard a lot of bad things about big schools and had heard that here at Gonzaga professors will know who you are."

Journalism professors Tom Miller and Susan English know Larson well and said there's no way they could miss a talent like J.D.They credit his success more to his own talent and drive than anything they have done but Larson is quick to give them credit.

"They have been very helpful in terms of having me focus on things and go from knowing about sports journalism to knowing how to truly be a journalist," Larson said. "I probably wouldn't have these jobs without GU."

Miller and English might disagree.

In addition to his well-honed sense of storytelling, English said she is continually impressed with Larson's natural ability to make connections in his stories beyond the obvious. His humanity shines through his uncanny ability toconnect with others.

"He came here pretty well-equipped and I would characterize our role more as showing him the way, as opening the door and then he knew what to do," English said, adding she also appreciates his humility and sense of family.

"When he got the Dow Jones internship, I asked him whom his first call would be to and he said 'home.' I love that his first call would be to his mom and dad."

Miller, who said Larsonrepresented Gonzaga very well in Denver, notes a fire burning inside Larson.

"You get a sense that he relishes the challenge," Miller said. "I think there's a competitor in him."

All of those attributes will surely serve Larson well as he continues his career – at Gonzaga this yearand then into the world of journalism where he likely will write his own ticket.