Newspaper Days

When you work in the newspaper business, life seems current. That is, you walk to the front of the building, open the rack, and there you are. Tomorrow, you'll be there, too. When I was working for the Las Cruces Sun-News, I tried to save my "clips" -- jargon for clipping out the articles that I wrote.

Inevitably, I would fall behind. Just as "today" never seems like the right day to clean my desk, "today" never seemed like the right day to cut out articles. The thing is, however, that the sense of currency afforded by the newspaper business is fleeting. It's not real. If you blink, you are no longer current. Those clips are gone. Lost to time.

For various reasons -- including my apparent masochistic taste for suffering -- I have spent a lot of time on Memory Lane these past few weeks. Tonight finally pushed me over the edge, and I dredged out my briefcase of clips. My entire career as a journalist fits in one over-stuffed briefcase. The problem is that the clips that are most dear to my heart are not in that briefcase. They are locked away somewhere on microfilm, because "today" just wasn't the right day to pull out the scissors.

Perhaps most annoying to me is that I don't have a copy of my favorite feature article, one I wrote on the Las Cruces High School girls soccer team. I have a copy of the cover but not the "jump," or the inside page that has most of the meat of the article. So I can start to read it, but I cannot finish it. And, frustratingly, the Sun-News is not catalogued in Lexis-Nexis.
Today I pulled out that 8 1/2 by 11 copy of the cover, and I noticed that it was 7 years ago this week. Perhaps my recent entrapment on Memory Lane has been fueled in part by the similar season. Join me, won't you...

Sunday, Oct. 11, 1998
Las Cruces Sun-News
Page B-1
Winning with style
LCHS girls dominate on the field
By Samuel Bradley
Sun-News Sports Editor
Cal Ripken Jr.'s streak came to an end in 1998. Alex Reyes and his Las Cruces girls soccer players are hoping their streak lives on.

While Ripken has been baseball's Ironman, the Bulldawgs have dominated -- owned, really -- District 3AAAA girls soccer. In fact George Bush was residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. the last time this team lost a district game, in October 1992.

The girls extended their streak Saturday to 69 district games with a 6-2 win over Mayfield.
Sustaining performance at such a level cannot be easy. Yes despite the work these girls put forth, they all describe their experience as fun.

A lot of fun.

"It's a different team," senior Kristina Kemmer said. "It is different than everybody in the district. We have a lot of team unity.

"We're really close knit. We like to hang out together. You can't be a team unless you get along."

Under the relentless pressure to perform, Reyes and his girls find a way to make their hard work fun.

"It's a good pressure," said senior Rudi Rae Muñoz, who has played on the varsity squad for three years. "It makes us want to play to our ability and beyond our ability."

"I can't think of anything more enjoyable than trying to accomplish the goals you've set for yourself," Reyes said.

Those goals include winning the state Class AAAA title, a feat no one on this team has man-

See Winning Page B-6

You see, the trouble is, Page B-6 never comes.