The Tar Heel takeover continues!
But in all seriousness, hey everybody! My name is Jeremy Vernon and I am the new Sports Editor at the News + Record. Here’s a little bit about what I was involved in before joining this wonderful community of journalists in Chatham County.
If you couldn’t tell already, I graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill back in 2017 with a B.A. in Journalism and a specialization in Reporting. Like many of my current colleagues at the CN+R, I spent most of my time in school working for The Daily Tar Heel, UNC’s student newspaper and arguably the top teaching paper in the country. I practically lived at the DTH office for eight semesters and two summers.
After graduating I worked briefly for MLB.com as an intern covering the Cincinnati Reds before leaving to take a full-time position at The Enquirer-Journal in Monroe. While there, I led coverage of all 12 of our area high schools as well as our coverage of the Carolina Panthers and Charlotte Hornets.
In my spare time I enjoy following the Panthers and Hornets, though my biggest affiliation is probably to English soccer club Liverpool. I also love spending time with my 8-month old puppy, Summer. Yes, she is a good girl. Thank you for asking.
I am incredibly excited for this new opportunity and look forward to meeting a lot of our readers over the next several months as the school year gets underway. We’re now just over a week from the start of the fall sports season, and you can feel the magic in the air in Pittsboro, Siler City and everywhere else across the county.
I’d like to thank our publisher, Bill Horner III, for taking a chance on me, as well as former sports editor Victor Hensley for helping make the transition as smooth as possible. Victor was an excellent reporter and editor for us, and you can tell how much he cared about the local schools and athletes.
This upcoming year, I will work tirelessly to make sure the six high schools in Chatham County — Northwood, Chatham Central, Seaforth, Jordan-Matthews, Chatham Charter and Woods Charter — are all given their fair share of coverage. Just glancing at some of the stats from last school year, there are several local athletes whom I can’t wait to see take their respective field/court/starting block.
I’ve only been on the job for about a week, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised with the response I’ve gotten from the local athletic directors, coaches and student-athletes. Sometimes people — for whatever reason — are hesitant to talk to the media, but everyone I’ve spoken with so far has treated me with dignity, respect and general excitement.
Of course, one thing that will make my job infinitely easier is collaboration with the community. If there’s a team you don’t feel like is getting adequate coverage, please send me an email. If I misspell a name, feel free to roast me on Twitter.
Otherwise, my ears are open for any ideas that might make for an interesting story. I have not had the benefit of being in Chatham County for very long, so I’ll be leaning on many of you to get started in the right direction.
Outside of our high school and other local athletic coverage, I’m planning on writing a regular column like Victor did to share my opinions on some of the issues going on at the top levels of sport.
I’ll try to refrain from so much UNC talk. But seeing as this is my first column — I couldn’t not take a shot at that other team that plays in Durham.
81-77. That is all. Sorry, Coach K.
Jeremy Vernon can be reached at jeremy@chathamnr.com or @jbo_vernon.