New reporter finding passion in sports writing

MOSES LAKE — It’s about time our newest reporter gets a formal introduction.

“I’ve always enjoyed sports,” said 27-year-old Casey McCarthy, who started as a sports reporter for the Sun Tribune earlier this month. “It’s raw and it’s old school, it’s straight-up competition, it’s emotional and physical.”

McCarthy, a native of Kentucky and a graduate of Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, is new to the Columbia Basin, and while he’s worked for a number of years, considers his new posting as a sportswriter and photographer his “first real job.”

“I’m still sinking my teeth into this,” McCarthy said.

As a student and a sports reporter for the College Heights Herald, Western Kentucky University’s student newspaper, McCarthy said he liked both writing and taking pictures, mixing them up as much as he could for both class and newspaper assignments.

“And now I get to do both every time I go out,” he said. “I always felt I was a writer first, but now I have to juggle (writing and photography).”

While he’s finding his passion as a sports writer, it isn’t all McCarthy said he likes writing about.

“I did a lot of environmental and science writing,” he said. “But I can always pick that up.”

McCarthy finds the arid scrubland of the Columbia Basin “new” and likes what he has seen so far as he’s travelled around the region following teams and covering playoff games and championships.

“It’s completely different from Kentucky, and it’s really pretty,” he said.

A self-described “outdoors nut,” McCarthy also likes watching movies, and has an extensive DVD collection to prove it. In fact, his collection is such that he had to leave all his DVD cases back home in Owensboro before he hit the road and moved to Moses Lake.

“I have over 500 DVDs in two binders,” he said.

And he’s happy to be out and about, though McCarthy warns he will be glued to his TV - “like 95 percent” of Kentuckians - during Kentucky basketball season.

“I’m just excited to be here,” he said. “I have good experiences wherever I’ve gone. There’s a lot to be said about the small town mentality, it’s very welcoming.”

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached via email at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com.