By Jim Hagarty
1988
Last year around this time, my weekly column and I won a couple of awards in a newspaper competition. I got to go to a banquet, sit at the head table and amidst much applause, walk to the podium and accept two nice plaques and $100. I was suitably proud of myself and have pretty well lived off that glory for the past 365 days.
If the experience taught me nothing else, it did make me very skilled at working my newly won status as an award-winning writer into many of my conversations, even into discussions where you wouldn’t necessarily realize, at first, that it would fit.
“Well the biggest problem I see with free trade,” you might overhear me saying during a conversation on the subject, “is how clothing costs could be affected. Goodness knows, they’re high enough now. Why, I just couldn’t believe the price of the tuxedo I rented to go to the newspaper awards banquet last year …”
See what I mean? (Another example: “Pass the gravy, please. You know, this meal reminds me of the great food at last year’s newspaper awards banquet.”)
Anyway, those two chunks of wood with the brass nameplates attached kind of made me an elder statesman around the newsroom in the eyes of some of my fellow journalists who hadn’t yet won such accolades for their work. And like all other esteemed mentors from down through the ages, I gave my younger comrades the full benefit of my experience and all the encouragement I could.
“You just have to be patient and work hard,” I’d say.
“Never set out to win an award. Just do your best and if what you’ve done is worthy, it will be recognized sooner or later. True genius rarely goes unnoticed.”
Little speeches like this rolled off my tongue so easily, I amazed even myself, let alone those of my compatriots who had the good fortune to hear me.
“Yes sir,” I’d say. “It might have only taken me a few hours to write those prize columns. But it took me a lifetime to live them.”
So, when this year’s awards competition was approaching, I proved to be an eternal flame of inspiration and support for my fellow workers who weren’t sure they had what it takes to win.
“What have you got to lose?” I asked photographer Scott, who wondered if his entry was good enough. “You never know about these things. You just might win.”
“But your stuff’s so good,” he said.
“Yes, but who knows?” I replied, in all humility. “It’s certainly possible I might not win anything at all this year.”
“I doubt that,” said Scott.
Reporter Mark was similarly shy about his work, but I told him to be proud of his efforts and enter the competition. If he didn’t win an award, at least he’d build his character by having tried for one. There can be no shame in missing the brass ring. Only in never having reached for it.
So, we all sent in our entries, sat back and waited for the results.
This week, the winners were announced. Scott won two awards for a photograph of a little girl with her violin at a music festival. Mark, an award for a feature on a mission of mercy he accompanied to Haiti. They both won in a category I won last year.
I shared their joy at the announcement and then asked my boss what it was I’d won.
“Nothing,” he said.
Since Monday, Scott and Mark have been going on about their good luck as if they were the first persons to ever win awards. They got their pictures in the paper and have been taking swipes at me at every opportunity.
“Sorry you didn’t win,” they both said.
“Just what do you mean by that?” I asked.
Personally, I think people put too much stock in awards. They’re nice to have won, perhaps, but yesterday’s homerun doesn’t win today’s ball game. And the smiles on the faces of a writer’s readers are a more meaningful reward than any wooden shield he could hang up on a wall.
Besides, I’m still sure there’s been some sort of a mistake.
A terrible mistake.
