This was at Newark Airport, C terminal, maybe 10 years ago. John Sterling and I were on the same flight bound for Tampa, the start of another spring training for both of us, and as we whittled away the time toward boarding the plane we found ourselves, quite remarkably, transported to a place called Wellsville, N.Y.
“I’ve called it a one-stoplight town,” Sterling told me with a laugh, “although I have to tell you, I’m not sure I remember there ever being even one in those days.”
We’d both gotten our careers started there, Sterling at WLSV-AM radio around at the dawn of the ’60s, me at the Times-Herald in neighboring Olean 28 years later. He was talking about the impossibly big dreams young men with ambition place on themselves.
“Here I was, reporting on a Wellsville High-Allegany High football game,” Sterling said, “and to me it was the Army-Navy game, in front of 100,000 people, with a hundred million listening. I tried to treat every game that way.”
