oops

I screwed up. I hate when I screw up. It's even worse when I screw up at work...with something that is going to cost our office about $3,000 to redo.

It's certainly not the first mistake I've made in the world of sports information. There have been typos, exclusions and assumptions that shouldn't have been assumed. But this one hurt a lot.

The men's basketball media guide was delivered yesterday. I didn't even bother to look at it because I had already seen it too many times on my desktop. Before I even sent it to print, I was pumped about how the layout turned out. It was new, original and no one at Mercyhurst had seen anything like it. I had also bumped the page number up by 16 pages and added a few new sections. When I come into a new job and start putting out publications, I want people blown away. I'm proud to say that people around the biz considering me an up and comer, or as the A.D. from Juniata said, I was a "young gun."

That's a very flattering comment but maybe it went to my head. This whole "young gun" persona that me and some of my best friends of in the profession have taken on says that we have to produce things bigger, better and faster every year. Publication must be sharper with better content. The web site mush be filled with video and graphics but remain informational. Gone are the days of filing cabinets and folders. Gone are the tri-fold recruiting brochures. Let's face it. College athletics is a business. We are in the business of making our school look good and getting good athletes to come to our school.

Very often I look down on the old-timers in our business, smirking at their old school way of doing things and inability to keep up with the technology. But I learned today with the men's basketball media guide that I may be a young gun, but I could learn learn something from the old timers. Something as simple as proofreading.

Even when I was the editor of the sports pages in college, I had little patience for editing and proofreading. I'm more of a writer and designer. But it's part of my job. A big part of my job. Apparently, not once, but twice, I spelled Niagara "Niagra." There was also a subtraction from last year's win totals in the stats (not sure how that happened) and a couple of errors that should have been caught. I'm not sure what's worse. That I missed the mistakes, or that two SID's and an intern missed the mistakes. I'm not casting blame on my co-workers because it's my guide and final responsibility falls on me.

Fortunately for me and unfortunately for the printing company, they messed up the font on the back inside cover and deleted two of my headers for some inexplicable reason. So, because it was the printing companies mistake, we'll get the guides reprinted with no expense to our department. Whew. I dodged a bullet, but I'm not going to forget this. For now on, I'm going over everything with a fine-toothed comb. Checking and double checking every name, fact and stat to be doubly sure.

I decided to go to biblegateway.com and see how many times the word careful shows up in the Bible. Upon a quick search, it's at least 117 times. It's probably no coincidence that it's in the Bible so much. God doesn't care much for careless behavior. Proverbs says "...But he who is careless of his ways will die." Watchful is also a buzz word. Especially in the new testament.

My carelessness doesn't apply to only proofreading for me. If it's in a piece of what I do, I'm doing it, and what's to stop me from doing the same in other areas, even not paying close attention to what God is telling me to do, or looking past people in need or missing out on great opportunities because I don't think they are important. Well, from first hand experience, there are many more important things than I once thought. My lackadaisical attitude has to stop...in every area of my life. If there is a mistake, fix it. If there is an opportunity, seize it. There is a fine line in taking care of business and stressing over details. But here's the deal. Stressing is worrying and you have no reason to worry when you take care of business.

It's time to be careful and watchful. I'm tired of laziness or personal weakness creating problems.