Looking into a small office, one sees a row of baseballs on the windowsill. Pictures of sports players, a white board, a calendar, a diploma and a set of model football helmets hang on the walls. On the desk is a computer and other supplies ready for a day at work.
The office has not always been this way, but recently it became a place for the new sports writer for the Levelland News-Press, Jentezen Smith, who started working last Monday.
Smith grew up a member of a large family in Edmond, Oklahoma, and was recently married in June. He earned a degree in journalism at Oklahoma Baptist University, and while there, he worked for the student paper and interned for the Lincoln County News in Chandler, Oklahoma.
“Until I graduated, I had been an athlete my whole life,” Smith said. “I played football and ran track all the way through high school. I played basketball all the way up to my freshman year in high school, and then I ran track collegiately at Oklahoma Baptist.”
Smith said he is “a sports fanatic.” His love of sports extends past participating in them as he also enjoys watching the Texas Rangers, Oklahoma State Cowboys, Oklahoma City Thunder, NASCAR, UFC and other sports.
“My dad was born in Texas,” Smith said. “He grew up in Fort Worth, so my Cowboys and Rangers fandom all comes from growing up with my dad, and I’ve always been a huge fan of the state of Texas. I’ve always wanted to be a Texan a little bit internally.”
Smith’s interest in journalism and sports media started leading into his senior year at Edmond Memorial High School.
“A big thing in my life has been that I’ve always wanted to do something that I loved for work, and as I referenced, sports has always been one of my passions or my hobbies,” Smith said. “I was thinking what’s something that I can do to stay close to it. And I was like, well, I could be a sports journalist, and then that opened up the door.”
After high school, Smith explored different sides of the subject, and “found myself really enjoying writing.”
“As I learned more and more about journalism in college, I just fell all the more in love with it, and then interning for a local paper in Oklahoma, I really enjoyed it,” Smith said. “And now it really has a special place in my heart. It started with sports, but then journalism as a whole kinda sucked me in.”
Smith came to Levelland by networking with and using his resources during an extensive job search. He had worked at another newspaper owned by the owner of Levelland News-Press, so he got in contact with him and the Regional Advertising Director for Wesner Publications to ask if they had any open positions in the Oklahoma area. They informed him that they did not have anything in the immediate area, but there was a potential opening a little further away in West Texas.
“That door just kinda stayed open the whole time, and the other ones were being closed,” Smith said. So honestly, the main reason why I’m here is it was kinda evident in my wife and my life that this is where God wanted us, and He made it clear.”
Ultimately, Smith said he and his wife are happy and blessed to be in and become part of the Levelland community.
“I love Jesus, I love my wife, I love my family and I really love sports,” Smith said. “So I’m excited to be here.”