Sportswriter quits USA Today to become high school English teacher
Steve Wieberg, who quit USA Today in July after nearly 30 years at the paper, is now a fulltime English teacher at Lawson (Mo.) High School.
Steve Wieberg
“I’m terrified,” Wieberg told Ed Sherman before heading into the classroom to face students for the first time. “I feel like I’ve been dropped out of a helicopter right into the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.”
Sherman writes:
Wieberg is making this lifestyle change out of choice and not because he lost his job due to newspaper cutbacks, as has been the case with so many others in the profession. …
He covered 29 straight Final Fours and 15 NCAA Conventions. The grind, though, was taking its toll of Wieberg. He was getting tired of phone calls at 6:30 in the evening, telling him to take the next plane to Dallas or somewhere else.
“Your life is subject to the whims of breaking news,” says Wieberg. “You get a phone call and you’re off and running. That’s the job. I’m not quarreling with it. But I thought I had lost the balance between work and life in the last couple of years, and it only was going to skew further in that direction.”
* USA Today sportswriter makes transition to high school teacher (shermanreport.com)
* Earlier: Longtime USA Today sportswriter Steve Wieberg is stepping down (chronicle.com)
