Don?t Mess With Success (Opinion)

Coaches, perhaps more than the rest of us, can employ pet phrases so much that the words become part of their identities.

When I think of a favorite basketball coach, for example, I can still hear him telling his players, “Don’t get bored with success.”

He said it year after year to team after team. He said it so much veterans would roll their eyes before he finished the sentence.

Inevitably, though, a newcomer would hear it and look at him with an expression of pure puzzlement. On those occasions, he was more than happy to stop practice and explain.

“If something’s working, we’re gonna keep doing it,” he would say. “We’ll run that play till they prove they can stop it.”

I thought of that coach when I officially assumed the role of editor of the Business Journal on the last day of February. It’s a humbling honor to follow some mighty fine newsmen.

The latest was Worth Sparkman, and regular readers probably caught his farewell column in our last issue. It was a heartfelt piece that exemplified how much being editor of this publication meant to him.

Being editor comes with a significant responsibility, of course, and that is to bring you the stories that matter most to our business community. Our goal is to investigate, inform and, to a lesser extent, entertain.

We will continue to do just that, albeit with some new faces. Paul Gatling, for one, has joined the staff as an assistant editor.

If you picked up a sports page in Benton County from January 2001 to October 2009, you probably already know him. Gatling was a sportswriter for a brief time at the Benton County Daily Record before taking over as its sports editor.

Having spent almost 15 years as a sportswriter in Northwest Arkansas, I can assure you there was no better coverage of Benton County sports than what Gatling and his staff produced. It’s exciting to now have him on our team.

There will be another staff addition in the coming weeks. If the most recent interviews are any indication, we will have the ammo we need to meet the aforementioned goals.

We’re well aware our readers have goals, too, and many of you have indicated the business climate is slowly warming. It’s our sincerest hope that is the case, that current goals are met and loftier ones put in their places.

Whatever the case, we will continue to provide the coverage you’ve come to expect. We’ll do it in a lot of the same ways and maybe some new ways, too. We understand and appreciate the same grow-or-die philosophy many of you use in your day-to-day business.

Ultimately, though, previous editors of the Business Journal put a sound plan in place. And that favorite basketball coach no doubt would tell me the same thing he preached to his players: Don’t get bored with success.