The lead sports columnist at the Las Vegas Review-Journal for nearly 20 years, Ed Graney is our guest this week on Nevada Week In Person.

♪♪ Support for Nevada Week In Person is provided by Senator William H. Hernstadt.

-Welcome to Nevada Week In Person.

I'm Amber Renee Dixon.

A Southern California native, he delivered newspapers in Laguna Beach as a child.

He'd go on to get a degree in English Literature at San Diego State and later work at The San Diego Union Tribune, Super Bowls, Final Fours, even the Olympics.

He's covered numerous high-level sporting events, all while witnessing and reporting on the explosion of Major League pro sports in Las Vegas.

Ed Graney, Lead Sports Columnist at the Las Vegas Review-Journal since 2006, welcome to Nevada Week.

-It's been awhile.

-Yeah.

-They give these anniversary congratulations at the Review-Journal each month.

I saw that number, and I said, Wow, that's a big number.

-And then how long have you been on ESPN Radio?

-That's been several years as well.

That's been 10 years, I think.

-And you can be heard on ESPN 1100, Monday through Friday on "The Press Box," 7 to 10 a.m.

Okay, let's go back to being a sports columnist.

What led you to pursue this career?

(Ed Graney) You and I talked in the past, and I said at some point I decided I was not going to be Magic Johnson, so when you make that determination in your life and you want to stay around sports and you love to read and love to write, you come to the conclusion that maybe this would be a good profession to have.

I grew up reading the LA Times.

All their columnists, all their writers, I loved every day.

I kind of was voraciously going through the sports page in a newspaper, and I thought, hey, when the time comes, that would kind of be cool.

So first thing I ever covered was my sister's adult softball league for the local paper in Laguna Beach, California.

Shout out to them.

And then it just took off from there.

And high school, you know, newspaper, college newspaper, sports editor at, was fortunate to get the job in San Diego at the Union Tribune, and when I was still in college, and then was hired there when I graduated full time, and then it just took off.

-Why English literature instead of a journalism degree?

-Perfect.

Yeah, great question.

When I started the Union Tribune in San Diego, I had started San Diego State, and I was doing my general ed.

And I actually asked the sports editor, should I major in journalism?

He said, What do you want to major in?

I said, English.

And he said, Well, do that, because all the experience you're going to need for journalism will be at the newspaper.

So worked there 30 hours a week while going to college and got all the experience I needed in a daily deadline situation and how a newspaper was put out and how things ran on a nightly basis, and get those high school scores in on time, get your roundups in on time.

And, yeah, so I had all that experience.

I was able to major in English, which I really wanted to do in the first place.

-So then you start out as a sports writer before becoming a sports columnist.

That's the traditional path, right?

-It's a progression.

You start covering high schools.

You start learning what it's like to file from a pay phone at a 7-Eleven at 10:30 at night, on the old couplers when you have to push in the F8 and F9 and hope the story gets there.

And then it's just a progression of you start out there, then you go to cover some colleges, and that's kind of a cool thing, and then a professional beat.

I did a lot of takeouts.

I did a long form, long form feature writing before becoming to columnist.

I wanted to become a columnist, and I was given a great opportunity there.

I was the third columnist there.

We had two veterans kind of in front of me, and, yeah, I learned a lot from them, and I was really fortunate.

-Why Las Vegas?

What brought you here?

-I wanted to be a lead sports columnist.

There were a couple guys in San Diego who probably weren't going to leave for a while.

They didn't, and I thought it was a good opportunity to come and be able to write a sports column on a consistent basis, instead of being third guy and just kind of doing it every once in a while.

So that kind of pushed the envelope to bring the family here.

Our kids were really young at the time, so they really hadn't started school.

So that was a good idea that we weren't taking them from school that they loved and friends that they loved.

They were still really young.

So that's kind of what brought us to Las Vegas.

-The difference between a sports writer and a columnist is that you get to interject your opinion.

-Mm-hmm, yes.

-Do you remember when you got the go-ahead to start doing that?

Was that a big deal?

-I think it was a big deal and I think a learned skill.

You know, I think-- people say, you know, People love it or hate it.

It's comments, you want it 50/50.

You know, you don't want, you don't want apathy.

So, you know, I have the emails to prove it on the one side, and I have the other emails as well.

But yeah, I think it's a learned skill over time.

And you know, everyone's human.

So, you know, even when you give your opinion and people don't like it, you're human.

You kind of rethink it and say, do they make a good point and stuff like that.

But, yeah, I mean, it started-- I got a really good education, like I said, from those two columnists in San Diego in terms of how to write a column, what to do when you're writing a column.

And that helped out a lot.

-Did they tell you anything about what to do when you get heat for something you write?

-Oh, my main mentor in San Diego was named Nick Canepa.

He said, If you don't have thick skin, then don't do this.

You know, if you don't-- if it's gonna bother you when someone doesn't like an opinion or writes an email or leaves a voicemail, then it's not the job.

-Yeah, it's crucial to this position to have thick skin, I would imagine.

-Yes, exactly.

-And did you ever think people would get so riled up about sports?

I mean, I can't imagine that other reporters at the RJ who are doing general assignment reporting are getting this kind of interaction.

-Well, they might be.

I don't know, I'm not in their email box.

-Okay.

-But yeah, sports brings out, as we know with fans in different parts of the country and different parts of the world, the passion in people and the love and hate for certain teams.

And so I guess I wasn't that surprised, because I've known so many sports fans in my life who were like that, who were do and die with their teams and live and breathe every moment with them.

So I don't think I was surprised at that part of it.

-You brought up Magic Johnson.

-Yes.

-And he played-- well, had a key moment in your career.

Would you tell our viewers about that.

-The day that Magic was going to announce he was HIV positive, I was in San Diego, our NBA writer at the time was not around, so they told me, Get in a car.

There's a certain announcement Magic is making.

We didn't know what the announcement was, but they said, We hear it's a big deal, and get to LA.

Just got in the car, not knowing.

Really young guy, not knowing, kind of scared.

When I was walking to it, had the AM radio on trying to get sports talk radio to say what it was, and midway through my drive, they said it had something to do with his health.

Got there.

One of my best friends and still best friend in the business, Mark Ziegler from San Diego, was dating at that time someone in the organization for the Lakers.

She stood out at the front door knowing I was coming.

She goes, I have a seat for you.

Little did I know, it was front and center at the Magic Johnson HIV press conference.

And I was just-- I, still young guy, I didn't really understand what was happening, had my notebook out, was trying to take notes on whatever they were saying.

And that was a crazy story to write for me for the next day for the paper from Los Angeles.

And I went home, and my roommate at the time, who's now an ESPN baseball reporter, Buster Olney, we were both living in San Diego at the time, roommates, and we were both huge Magic fans.

Like he was our favorite player of all time.

And we sat there watching ESPN that night, like, wondering how long does he have?

Because we didn't really know that much about it, other than it was really serious, so we were just taken aback and sad and all that.

And, you know, thank goodness Magic is still with us.

And but, yeah, it was, it was a crazy day being in the front row of that press conference.

I still see pictures of that, and I just can't-- -With your red hair standing out?

-I think I had a Hawaiian shirt on.

-Oh, boy.

-Back in the day.

Because when I went to work that day, little did I know this was going to happen.

I think I had jeans and Hawaiian shirt on, and they just said, Get to LA.

-Did that influence you in any way or change you as a journalist?

-I don't know if it influenced me.

I mean, it scared me that day.

-Because of the magnitude?

-Because of the magnitude of the story, and I'm sitting down in the Lakers press-- or press area afterwards, really wondering what I was supposed to write.

I mean, I was really young at that time, and you know, that was the biggest story by far that I had ever written.

And you know, you're writing about a topic that, like we said, not many people knew a ton about at that point.

So I don't know how I got through that.

I don't even really remember what it said.

They probably helped me a lot that night with the editing in terms of what was on the wire as compared to what I filed.

But yeah, it was-- it showed me, though, the magnitude of the story, what a magnitude of the story can have.

-What you could potentially be covering in the future?

-Exactly.

-Yeah.

It's not just all scores and who made this many buckets.

-Exactly, this many buckets, yeah.

-So you moved to Las Vegas.

Could you foresee the sports town this would become?

-No.

When we moved here, the biggest sport in town was UNLV basketball.

And I think maybe one day it'll be big again.

They haven't been in the NCAA tournament in a long time, but they have a new coach, Josh Pastner, and I think he'll do a good job.

But that was the sport.

That was the sport you covered.

That's the sport you traveled with.

I remember that, going on road trips with UNLV basketball.

Little did I ever know that it could become this.

I knew, I sort of knew there'd be a lead that would kind of be the guinea pig that would come in and kind of see if it worked.

And everyone said it was going to be hockey, that they would be the first ones to jump in the pool.

And eventually it was hockey.

You know, obviously we have the Triple-A team now, the Aviators, but in terms of major league professional sports, it was the hockey team.

And, you know, we've obviously seen what's happened with the Golden Knights?

So, no, I never imagined.

If you told me at that point there's going to be an NFL team here and a Major League Baseball team on its way along with the hockey, I would have never believed you.

-Another huge story, the One October shooting and the Golden Knights' response.

You were at that game.

-Yes.

-Do you remember feeling pressure?

Or what did you think going into that, how do I cover this?

-Yeah, those are, those are difficult, too.

Sometimes the story just writes itself.

That night it did with the ray of lights that they had, the countdown of all those who had passed.

So it really set up, you know, a scene setter.

And columns can be opinions.

They can be scene setters.

They can be features.

They can be different things.

That night, I just felt I had to tell the story of what happened, how they honored the victims, how they honored everyone at the shooting.

And there's no question in my mind, as big as the NFL is--and having the NFL here is great and the A's are coming and I think one day an NBA team--this town will never feel about a team like they do the Golden Knights, because of that time, because of these guys coming in here.

A lot of them had never been to Las Vegas.

They had never been here.

So for what they did, for what Bill Foley did, had them in hospitals, had them around visiting people that were struck by the tragedy, I thought was amazing.

And I don't think any team will ever be felt by a fan base like the Golden Knights are.

-Do you ever take time, or have the time, to reflect on what you have witnessed and been able to cover?

-Now that the kids are out of the house, we have more time.

Now that they're-- one's married, just got married, and then another one's living her life and doing a great job there in San Diego.

Yeah, I mean, I have a collection of press passes, and you can look at those-- I was looking at them.

We were doing some cleaning around the house, and I was looking at Super Bowls, Final Fours, NBA Finals, and it just reminds you of those things.

Olympics, which I was really, really happy to be able to cover, the London and the Beijing Olympics.

But it does remind you of all the-- and it's an honor to cover for these newspapers and to be able to go to big events.

I don't take it for granted.

I never have.

It is cool to look back on these events you've been able to cover and what you saw at them.

-On the other hand, when you talk about your family, these events require you to be out of town, or on a Saturday night you're somewhere.

-Right.

-How do you raise a family with that kind of schedule?

-You have the best wife in the world, the greatest woman in the world to kind of share your life with.

My kids growing up, I was fortunate to where I did have a schedule.

I was able to coach them.

I was able to be around for a lot of stuff.

You take your vacation wisely, in and around events, but they knew growing up what I did.

And my son fell in love with the NBA.

My daughter played club softball for a long time.

So they were around sports.

They enjoyed sports, so that made it a lot better.

But yeah, it was just having the best wife in the world and her doing a great job raising our kids.

And when I had to go, I had to go.

-How does your wife feel when you talk about her on the radio?

Because I've heard you talk about her plenty.

-Greenspan, a loving nickname.

-I mean, I remember during COVID, you described how, how paranoid she was when someone from Amazon would deliver a box.

-I couldn't come in the-- I couldn't come in the house, you know, without getting down to the shorts and the T-shirt.

It was-- the shoes were off.

Everything was off in terms of the-- in terms of COVID.

-I know that she likes Baja Blasts at Taco Bell.

Why do I know this?

What does she think about people knowing this?

-She just thinks it's silly.

She thinks there's a lot more important things to talk about.

She-- it's a kidding, lovingly nickname of Greenspan, because she handles the finances.

I have no idea in terms of anything about that.

If you ask me anything about that, I couldn't tell you down to the cent about what we have or what we don't have, but, yeah, she's awesome.

And COVID brought-- got me a good, a few good columns out of it.

She got me a few good columns out of it.

-Ed Graney, thank you for joining Nevada Week In Person.

-Thanks, Amber.

I appreciate it.

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