COLUMN: Carl Tyson’s selfless service worthy of some ‘good ink’

Reader feedback, in this business, can come in different forms: phone calls, text messages or emails, both from people you know as well as random strangers. 

Sometimes they’re compliments, sometimes complaints. Often, something in between, as most folks don’t call if not for a gripe, but the vast majority also try to be polite and understanding while picking a bone. 

Not that I have any issue with it, but for whatever reason, I don’t often get much of either type. And that could either be a good thing, or a bad one. 

On the one hand, an inactive voicemail could suggest that folks are generally satisfied, or find no faults with anything in the sports section, despite the fact that you can probably catch at least one or two careless mistakes in grammar, spelling, or worse, in any given edition. 

My paranoia, at times, suggests that perhaps no one’s calling because no one’s reading, and what’s on these few pages in the heart of the paper simply gets missed by most who are just skimming through. 

One subscriber you could always count on reading, and hearing from, was East Laurens High School’s Carl Tyson, who sadly passed away last Saturday. 

Rarely a week went by during the school year when he wouldn’t call me up at the office, or at least stop me on the way through the gate at a Falcon athletic event he was working, with a question, piece of information or just some good-natured ribbing. 

Mr. Tyson was good about keeping me in the loop on the latest Eastside news and events, but he also wasn’t shy about pointing out an error or letting you know when he felt the Falcons may not have been given their due. 

If there’d been any lack of East Laurens content lately, or I hadn’t made it out to a home game in a couple of weeks, he’d always check in to find out why. Like any true fan, he maintained that the Falcons could always use just a bit more coverage. 

Mr. Tyson was the type whose persistence could get on your nerves every now and then. But when all was said and done, his input was something I came to appreciate because we both wanted the same thing: To have this community’s sports history documented, and local athletes’ success highlighted, in the best way possible. 

For every piece of constructive criticism, he’d just as frequently take time to offer thanks for the time and effort The Courier Herald’s sports team invested in covering the Falcons… especially when an East Laurens team or player got what he called some “good ink” in the sports pages. 

And you could bet there was no one quicker getting to the box to see how much of it had made each day’s paper. 

Little time would pass after reading that he’d go at it with scissors to cut out stories and photos, feeding them into a laminator in his classroom, to present to different athletes who’d been mentioned or pictured as a keepsake. 

Whether those ended up on the fridge or inside a scrapbook or shadowbox, he took it upon himself to make sure players had something tangible they could take along to be proud of, as well as a memory of big wins, great games and elite performances that would long outlast their fleeting years in high school. 

I’ll have to admit it was kind of neat, while attending a recent event, to observe a player carrying one of the freshly laminated articles he’d just given them on their way back through the gym after their basketball game. 

As a writer and photographer, it makes you feel good anytime you see a cutout of your story or photo someone’s posted on the bulletin board – or Facebook, which is the modern equivalent – and that your snapshot or choice of words had something to do with making a particular moment more unforgettable. 

Though physical newspapers are quickly falling out of use and necessity in modern times, one of the great features of print media that I firmly believe will never become obsolete is the clipping. 

Whether it’s a magazine cover, front page or scrap of a single story, that ink on paper – for whatever reason – holds a special place in our hearts and minds that a digital platforms, no matter how interactive or shareable on social media, will never be able to hold a candle to. 

The commemorative front pages that document a significant historical event, feature stories you put in a frame or simple standalone photos of a unique moment or key play in a game seem to be able capture something meaningful that no other medium besides ours can. 

That’s why the presentation – from headlines and graphics to photo captions with the witticisms and cheesy puns on my part that you tolerate each day – matters as much as the content itself. And the effort and creative energy we put into not just the coverage, but production of the actual newspaper… how it looks, reads and resonates… is with that fact in mind. 

Something all journalists strive to have at least one of – if not several – in every issue is a “Didyasee?” … Something folks read and immediately feel compelled to show to whoever’s standing nearby, or text a photo of to family and friends encouraging them to pick up a copy themselves. 

And I contend that the opportunity to create those experiences for our readers, hopefully on a weekly basis, is the best part of this job. 

Mr. Tyson was one who offered a constant reminder of the impact and importance of those little details. 

And I hope his practice of taking time to make sure those students don’t miss their name or picture in print is one that gets carried on in his memory. 

I honestly can’t tell you when he and I first met, but I’m positive it was somewhere on the East Laurens campus, where he was always around in some official or unofficial capacity. 

Though a teacher by day, his most visible jobs were probably the ones he did daily at sporting events, running gates for softball and baseball, operating the scoreboard or pass gate at football and calling out lineups as P.A. announcer at basketball games. 

Whether he was working or not, there was hardly ever a sport the Falcons were playing that he didn’t make it out for. And if you didn’t run into him somewhere at a home game, it was probably cause for concern. 

This past October, Mr. Tyson had to miss about a week’s worth of activities while hospitalized with an infection in Macon. And you had to know it pained him to miss a region championship-clinching win for the Falcon softball team against ACE Charter. 

But it was clear how much he was missed in that East Laurens players and coaches, the moment they had received the trophy after the game, called him up on speaker to report the news of their win to go back-to-back. 

Something else he made sure of during that short hospital stint… that he wouldn’t miss out on a week of making football predictions as part of our Pigskin Picks panel. 

Week to week, I was frequently too busy on Mondays to compile results and get a list of games out via email. But you could rest assured that if lunchtime passed by with no word, he’d be calling to make sure he hadn’t missed them. 

That week, in particular, he checked in several extra times from the hospital room to make certain I’d send everything to his phone so he could submit them – via photo of the hand-written picks from a pad of paper – in time to meet deadline. 

The opportunity to become a picker was one he’d expressed interest in once or twice. And I kept him in mind when a spot opened up the fall of 2022. 

Mr. Tyson was as dedicated as anyone to researching and thinking through his weekly selections, and was competitive though finishing in the middle of the pack both his first two years… likely because he faithfully picked East Laurens, no matter what, every single week – unwilling to give the Falcons’ players any indication he didn’t fully believe in their ability to win on a Friday night. 

This past season, he rallied from a few games back in the last week to finish as the champion. And I think the achievement had him walking at least a few feet off the floor in pride for several school days afterward. 

(Fellow panelist Don Carswell texted me Tuesday with the suggestion we create a physical award for this currently trophy-less football contest that be named in Mr. Tyson’s memory, and I’m completely on board with the idea). 

It was only appropriate that the piece we did to announce his Pigskin Picks victory take the form of an article he could clip out and laminate for the bulletin board in his classroom. But thinking back, I wonder how many other times his name ever showed up in print besides as a weekly picker. 

He was as well-known and beloved a figure as any in the Falcon family, but operated without a lot of publicity or recognition for what he gave to his school and community, and never asked for any. 

But those acts of kindness went much further on a day-to-day basis than the ones that have already been listed, and it’s about time he got some “good ink” for such selfless dedication to helping make East Laurens a worthwhile place to be, staunch loyalty to its players and coaches and undying support for each and all. 

Even at age 77, with mobility becoming more of a struggle in the face of health challenges, he still gave as much of his time and self to what he loved as he could, and that was being there to show each of them how much he cared. 

The Falcons had few bigger supporters. And come to think of it, I’m not sure our publication had many whose faithful readership meant as much either.  

He’ll be dearly missed by everyone who knew and worked with him, and ELHS games definitely won’t be the same without him holding court at the complex entrance, or over in the corner of the gym. 

Though Mr. Tyson suffered a medical emergency Saturday afternoon while attending the Falcons’ Final Four basketball games, being able to be there for such a monumental occasion was something I know meant the world to him. 

And for such a devoted East Laurens supporter, I can’t think of a better way to go… surrounded by your Falcon family while supporting your students on one of the biggest days of their high school careers.

It’d be hard to write a more fitting ending. 

I can’t say it any better than fellow die-hard Falcon Kathy Sweat, who summed things up perfectly in this epitaph offered Saturday night:

“Mr. Tyson was right where he wanted to be today and that was with all of you,” she wrote. “R. I. P. He died with his boots on.”