For more than 44 years, John Jeansonne worked at committing journalism in the sports department of Long Island’s Newsday. A reluctance to discontinue that invigorating endeavor, merely due to official retirement as a full-time Newsday staffer on Nov. 2, 2014—and a determination to keep doing this until he gets it right—has resulted in this Web site.
Newsday’s decades of journalistic and financial commitment to comprehensively cover sports—beyond the balls and strikes and the vacuous talk-radio echo chamber, to the cultural, political and ethical aspects of fun and games—allowed Jeansonne to chronicle memorable events, to travel to exotic U.S. and international locales, to cross paths with real heroes (Arthur Ashe and Nelson Mandela among them), to learn new things on a daily basis and enjoy countless yucks with fellow travelers.
He now is employed as an adjunct professor in the communications department at Hofstra University on Long Island, N.Y., optimistic that 21st-Century students will find a passion to deal in accuracy, grammar, content and style—even as they enjoy the unscripted drama of grand sporting events.
Jeansonne was born in Crowley, La., the third child of an oil field executive, grew up in five states—Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, California and New Mexico—graduated with a journalism degree from the University of Missouri and worked one year at United Press International’s New York City wire-service bureau before signing on with Newsday.
He won a handful of sportswriting awards and even had a brush with the Pulitzer Prize, submitting a story on security operations at the Atlanta Olympics that was part of Newsday’s 1996 Pulitzer for coverage of the Flight 800 jet explosion off Long Island. (As the Atlanta Olympics opened, U.S. officials had not yet ruled out a terrorist plot in the airline disaster nor possible related danger at the Games.) He also has produced occasional free-lance articles for Newsday.
Jeansonne and his wife Donna, a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Hofstra with multiple degrees, live in Babylon, N.Y. Their daughter, Jordan, currently based in London with her husband Paul and their son Alden, deserves full credit for making this Web site come to life.
What a delight to read something of yours, John! Your talent, creativity and master of the English language prevail!
A blast from the windswept plains of the past!
Merry Christmas to you and your family!
Minnie Tate Bourque
Such nice words from you. Makes my day. I labor under the assumption that all is well with you. Happy New Year. (Another one! Already!)
Cheers,
John
I love reading all of your stories, John!
Thank you, thank you. I do this stuff just for my own fun, but I love having a reader…..
Thank you for your talented work. I continue to enjoy your stories and congratulate you on your well being and health.
Anna Marie,
Thanks for the kind words. Hope all is well. Happy Holidays.
Cheers,
John
John: I was a friend of Suzanne’s in Hobbs…I have kept some of her writings and sketches through all of these years. You are a talented family — I’ve thought of her so frequently over my life….she enchanted me since our days at Houston Jr. High. I’m one of those that always wondered what happened to “the boys” …..nice to see these posts…and be reminded of her lasting influence on my life.
Diane Daniels Denish ’67
Hi, Diane,
What a pleasant surprise to hear from you. (The Internet is sometimes a great thing to hear from people after a measly 50 years or so.
I certainly think of my sister often as well. There’s a good chance she would have been the star of the family. I am occasionally in touch with a couple of Hobbs people via Facebook, but haven’t been in that part of the world in so long. My brother and I had cooked up plans to visit some haunts from our childhood–Odessa and Wink, Texas, and Hobbs–about a year ago, but I had to cancel. Open-heart surgery to fix a leaky valve. Didn’t feel a thing and was back to my daily runs through the neighborhood in about six weeks. Feel great. Just to bore you further: My brother lives in Victoria, Tex.. His three kids are grown, two of them married, with a handful of grandkids. I’ve been in New York since getting out of college. Married 47 years. Our daughter just had her first child in May, so we’re grandparents, too. (Officially old people.) Hope you are well during this crazy plague. Since my official retirement from the newspaper business, I’m teaching at a local college. (Lots of Zoom classes. Challenging but interesting.) Be well.
Cheers,
John
After reading Sunday’s edition of Newsday, I hope you will be sending in more columns. Read with pleasure.Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for the message. The decision-makers at Newsday–where I worked full-time for 44 years–are kind enough to occasionally let me do some freelance stuff, and I’ll keep attempting to write until I get it right. So, we’ll see…
Don’t know why I did it today, but I Goggled your name to see what has happened in the 50 or so years since we graduated from Mizzou. Sounds like life has been good to you. I retired about 10 years ago with a disability, Like you I spent my career in same city, but two different papers: the Houston Post and the Houston Chronicle. When hired by Chron I spent time with the traveling secretary of the Bodoni Romans. Harry passed several years ago. Hope things are well with you.
Ernie!
What a pleasant surprise to hear from a fellow Bodoni Roman. Yes, I’m living the good life. I miss the daily newspaper business a little bit but don’t miss being at Newsday since the paper went severly downhill several years ago and I officially retired in 2014. I was so lucky to be there during the paper’s great years. And I still write a freelance column for the paper’s Act2 section–the geezer section–every couple of months. I like retaining some of my ink-stained wretchedness, and meanwhile teach one sports journalism class at nearby Hofstra U. It’s probably not news to you, but too many of the young knuckleheads don’t know how to write because they don’t read anything beyond Twitter, and many journalism majors don’t seem to have a grasp on how to double-check facts. Nevertheless, it’s a good experience and there are a few bright ones–though nothing to compare with the crowd I knew at Mizzou. Recently visited with John Walsh. Occasionally exchange emails with Elliott Harris. Exchange Christmas cards with Joe Rhein and Ron Pemstein and spoke by phone with Pemstein several months ago. I’ve kind of lost touch with Rick Hummell, unfortunately. A few of the old Maneater folks have gotten together on Zoom a couple of times, most recently about a year ago. Hope you are doing well. Keep in touch occasionally. (johnfjeansonne@gmail.com). My brother still lives in Victoria, Tex., though I haven’t been there in years. All our traveling these days is to London, where my daughter, her husband and grandson live. But the next time I’m in the Lone Star State….