John Putt Rawlings

For 18 years, I was Senior Vice President/Editorial Director of the Sporting News. We had an ownership change in 2006. Part of the company was moved to Charlotte, N.C., (headquarters for the new owner) in 2007 and the rest was moved in July 2008. Our family did not make the move, so I am no longer part of the company or part of the media world. I had a great run at TSN and was not ready to step aside, so the parting was bittersweet.

Lynn and I have been married for 35 years and she has a very good job here (Treasurer for the local gas utility) so we decided the best thing for our family was for me to be a stay-at-home dad. Sam has some pretty daunting developmental/personality disorders and at the same time, he is as sweet a kid as you could ever want to meet. We hope a more structured, consistent home environment will help him (and us) deal with his challenges. It feels a bit odd, but it also feels right.

I don't consider myself retired, though I have no idea what my professional future will look like when I get back to it. God closes a window and opens a door, so I say I am in the door-opening business.

Lonnie Phillips encouraged me to quit football when I was a sophomore and spend more time on sports writing, advice I knew was right and appreciate to this day. Then Jess Stiles took exception to something I had written in the Growl -- no doubt it was trenchant -- and said, "Who do you think you are, Putt Powell?" More than a couple of people have posed that "Who do you think you are?" question over the years. One very nice thing, of many, that happened was I did become friends with Putt Powell and he would occasionally quote something from TSN in his column.