Remembering a fellow sports editor

Technically speaking, Jeff Klein ’09 and I were co-editors of The Campus Sports section for three semesters in 2008, but that distinction doesn’t do justice to either our friendship or the weekly lessons he gave me in sports reporting. A small and somewhat sterilized office, the Hepburn basement always seemed like a bigger and brighter place when he was there. He was the best sports writer I have ever met, combining a rich knowledge of the games and their participants with an attention to detail that never missed the subtle moments on which games hinged, and stories rested. But what truly made Jeff special as a reporter was his passion for the stories he covered — a passion that marked every word and every anecdote he put onto the page.

There is one story from my time with Jeff that embodies what made him special as a reporter and as a friend. In the winter of 2009, I had recently left the Sports section to become an editor of the Opinions section, and Jeff was covering the Men’s basketball team, which would go on to win the school’s first ever NESCAC championship in the sport. Knowing I was likely to write about the result in the Opinions section, the night before the championship game, I stopped by our sports information department to put myself, and Jeff, on the list of reporters — ensuring we would get into the game free of charge but would not receive a traditional ticket. When I told Jeff, he smiled, thanked me, but said he’d rather buy a ticket. You see, he was collecting the stubs from each playoff game the Panthers won, and, to Jeff, having that memory was worth the negligible cost of admission.

For Jeff, covering Middlebury sports was about more than the reporting, it was about supporting a group of individuals and teams he believed were an integral part to the college experience. The lessons I learned as his co-editor are many, but it is this imperative of emotionally investing myself in everything I do that remains strong to this day. It is strange to think about the impact individuals can have on our everyday lives, and how that impact expands exponentially as the actions of that one person are reflected by everyone with whom he came into contact. Like the teams he loved to cover, Jeff’s legacy will live on, memorialized in the actions of each of us lucky enough to encounter his wide smile, quick laugh and unique compassion. I might not have a ticket stub to remind me of our time together, but thanks to everything he taught me, I won’t need it.