SPIRE Summer 2019

alumni

Major League Team BC Grad Achieves Dream of Writing for

T o wake up excited to go to work every day is a dream most of us hope to achieve one day. BC grad Thomas Harding lives this reality. As a senior at Bluefield High School, Harding began to write for the local paper, the Bluefield Daily Telegraph (BDT). He knew he wanted to go to college and was planning to study communications as he had already fallen in love with journalism, with an ultimate dream to write for a major league sports team full-time. Though BC did not have a communication program yet, Harding took as many English classes as he could as a full-time student, worked at BDT as a full-time employee, and graduated with his associate’s degree and incomparable work experience. After five years in sports and news at BDT, Harding went to work at The Sun News in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, for two years. Next, he worked at the Commercial Appeal in Memphis, Tennessee, for eleven years where he wrote about all things sports, including Major League Hockey, the University of Memphis Basketball, Minor League Baseball, and the Tennessee Titans (then the Oilers). Then he landed his dream job. For nearly twenty years, Harding has been a beat writer for the Colorado Rockies with mlb.com, achieving his dream to write for a major league team. “People do not want information, they want to cheer for their team and it makes their day better,” said Harding. But, growing up in Bluefield, Harding expected football to be his beat, not

baseball. Yet, while in Bluefield he covered the Bluefield Orioles (now the Blue Jays), while in Myrtle Beach he covered the Blue Jays (now the Pelicans), and the Memphis AAA team, the Redbirds. Every step of the way, Harding’s community that raised him and the school that influenced him have played a part in his life today. “I feel like people paid attention to me for who I was, and that’s what I needed in a college experience. I did not need to go to a big school and get lost. I needed opportunities and professors and students to be there with me. Bluefield College was good for that,” said Harding. He achieved his dream of writing for a major league sports team, but now he

has new goals. One, in particular, is to design the home and away uniforms for the BC Rams baseball or football teams, both teams he still holds dear and follows closely. Professionally, Harding says, “It keeps changing, it was newspaper and now it’s web… I want to be in front of it instead of behind it for the rest of my career.” “Who knows what I’ll be doing in 10-15 years, but I want to be leading it. I have more career behind me than ahead, but there is so much good yet to be lived. I always want to be a part of today and not yesterday,” added Harding. Story by BC student marketing associate Emily Carlisle

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