Being sports editor of a tri-county newspaper bent on covering every meaningful high school sporting event within our borders offers access to hundreds of father-son relationships.

Occasionally, there’s a crossover; a player-coach dynamic involved. Other times, Pops isn’t an X’s and O’s guy. You can find him pacing nervously over the course of four quarters or seven innings, fitfully cursing the school policy that won’t allow him to light up a cigarette.

In either case, the good reporter always walks away feeling that the most interesting tale would be woven if he were privy to the conversation to follow in that family’s dining room or sport utility vehicle.

One of the most appealing things about covering youth sports for a living is that it debunks every stereotype put forth by Hollywood or a Gallup poll.

Watch these young people. Document their accomplishments, talk to them afterward and you recognize they’re not the tortured, disenfranchised generation we’ve been led to believe.

They’re not all limping through Advanced Basket Weaving and Hip-Hop Appreciation with a ‘C’ average. They aren’t pierced on every square inch of exposed skin.

Most of ’em even sit down for this one like their parents.

I know. Yuck. This goose bump-inducing warmth extends especially to fathers, who unlike the spineless buffoons modeled in sitcom land are actually treated with (gasp) reverence.

Why, just last fall, one strapping senior football player told me with a completely straight expression that his Old Man taught him everything he knows about sports.

Set out to feature just most any small-town star, ask what inspired his or her athletic journey and nine times out of 10 you’ll hear about Dad. Or Stepdad. Or an uncle who cared enough to be there and be supportive at every turn.

Perhaps rural Maine is the final bastion of domestic bliss, but I’ll take the optimistic off-ramp. Most everything I’ve encountered in a decade-and-a-half on the beat flies in the face of conventional chatter about absentee fathers and men who habitually shirk responsibility.

Admittedly, I’ve also had the benefit of positive personal experience.

My dad was not a Sports Guy in the devour-every-word-of-the-sports-section sense. There was nothing genetic about my disposition to memorize box scores and baseball cards or watch Big Ten football games in black-and-white through a cloud of static.

He wasn’t one for playing games, either, but worked his butt off so we could. He put up with kid-sized footprints on the trail to first base where his yard used to be. He tolerated 9-iron-sized divots and plastic golf balls chewed up and spit out by the lawn mower.

Most of all, he was there.

There at every Little League game I can remember, wearing one of his ill-fitting hats and dressed like a teacher after making a beeline from work. There to make the critical mistake of taking me to Oxford Plains Speedway at age 5, fostering my lifelong addiction to noise and exhaust and occupying his every weekend until the day I earned my driver’s license. There when I dragged him to countless high school football games, often watching schools with which neither one of us were affiliated.

It’s no exaggeration to say that my father was the greatest influence on my career. Mom was the official proofreader in the family, but hanging out with Dad in the grandstands convinced me that I’d rather spend my life chasing 42-0 football games than pursuing politics, law, accounting or anything else that was moderately intriguing.

Most of all, he taught me how to be a dad.

Now my five-year-old drags me to the racetrack, talks about wanting a go-kart and being like Jeff Gordon. Minus the $15.5 divorce settlement, hopefully.

We watch the Stanley Cup playoffs and Baseball Tonight, and he tells me he loves me. I’m hoping any connection between those facts is purely coincidental. My dream is that one day some other reporter will ask him about his sports heroes and that I might merit mention between Jeff and Nomar.

Thank you, Dad. Thank you to all dads.

Thanks for giving us life and then teaching us how to make the most of it.

Kalle Oakes is sports editor. He can be reached by e-mail at [email protected].