BREAKING: Journalist takes clubhouse jobs between gigs

Taylor Rocca wanted time to immerse himself in the community before he started his job as a sports editor

As he hangs his framed university degrees on yet another wall—he’s moved a half-dozen or more times in the past half-dozen or so years—Taylor Rocca, now of Kimberley, B.C., knows he needs to get to sleep soon if he’s going to be functional tomorrow morning. He’s the one who has to get there first to unlock the facilities for everyone else, after all, before the day starts at Mission Hills Golf Course, just a beautiful 20-minute drive up Highway 95 to Cranbrook, before he starts his shift as the pro shop assistant.

Wait…

Why is someone working at a par-three, executive golf course in southeastern B.C. when he has two post-secondary degrees, has lived in downtown Toronto while working for The Hockey News and has years of experience in community journalism?

Well, that’s the story here.

It’s because he needs something to do between journalism jobs, of course. While he was working as a sports reporter in Kindersley, Saskatchewan, the opportunity presented itself to take over as the sports editor of the Cranbrook Daily Townsman and Kimberley Daily Bulletin in B.C., where he received his journalism education, and he knew he had to go there well before the job began.

And he’s always been drawn to golf courses whenever there was a gap in his life that needed filling.

He got the call with the job offer in April. It was to start in August. He arrived at the beginning of May.

“The simple fact is that I love the atmosphere at a golf course,” Rocca said. “The sunshine, the friendly faces and the general pleasure that people experience is something that I need in my life.”

He gets that out of being around golfers while he’s between other career-building situations that, while they are personally and professionally fulfilling, are also stressful and all-consuming.

He felt that way between batches of schooling, too. And there were a lot of those while he obtained two university degrees.

While attending the University of Alberta in Edmonton for his Bachelor of Arts in Recreation, Sports and Tourism (the first of his two post-secondary credentials), for example, Rocca spent his summers at Springbank Links in Calgary as an all-purpose pro shop assistant, helping out at one of the premier courses in the area.

“The laidback and easygoing approach at a golf course was ultimately what drew me back,” Rocca said about why found a job at a golf course rather than keep his current newpaper gig in Saskatchewan until his new job started.

“I wanted to recharge my batteries,” he said.

Journalism takes a lot out of a person, after all.

“I have an incredibly difficult time turning my brain off,” he said. “A job in journalism feeds that, and it honestly can, and does, consume people. It is a 24/7 gig and if you have high expectations for yourself, you never turn off. For me, golf is all about leaving the real world behind.”

On the course “it's just me and my golf ball,” Rocca said. “Nothing else matters. For that sliver of my existence, all worldly stresses and complications might as well exist in another dimension.”

He also wanted to use the opportunity of being at a local course to get a feel for the area and its people before giving his all to a role with the newspapers that cover them.

“When I arrived in Kindersley, I moved in on a Saturday and started work immediately the following Monday,” he said. “I had spent a grand total of two days in the town, knew next to no one and little about the town apart from what I was able to research online,” he said.

He didn’t relish a repeat of that in the Kootenays.That meant moving to town and allowing enough time to fully immerse himself in both communities, he said, before being absorbed in his beat covering local sports.

Golf and journalism

“What I love about journalism—sports journalism in particular—is the individual and personal stories that tie into every day on the job,” Rocca said.

“So many people think, ‘Oh, sports are just games. Anyone can rewrite a boxscore. Why should we care?’ But those people couldn't be more wrong. The world of sport has so much depth to it and many people don't realize the impact sport has on our world,” he said, using the recent protests in Brazil over the upcoming World Cup and the You Can Play Project, with its efforts to eradicate sexual-orientation-based discrimination in sports and the community, to illustrate his point.

But his favourite thing about sports journalism, he said, are the stories he gets to help tell, and the positive effects that those stories can have on the world.

“I might not always be able to tell a story that has a political impact or greater societal impact,” he said, “but I believe if you can impact one person within your world, you have impacted the world itself on a greater scale. You never know how far the waves from one small act might carry.”

Golf plays a similar role for Rocca himself. The ability it gives him to escape the real world for four hours or so, allows him, as he said, to recharge his batteries, and, in a way, serves the purpose for him that he tries to serve for others with his writing.