Going back: moving forward 7: Journalist switching careers to teaching

Editor’s note: The Aztec Press presents its award-winning series from Fall 2009. This series, “Going back: moving forward,” tells the stories of nontraditional students who have returned to school—some after a few years, others after many. “Going back: moving forward” won first place for Feature Writing in the regional Society of Professional Journalists 2-year/community college category. It reached the top three at the national level, making it a national finalist.

Story and photo by Liza Porter

Breyman Schmelzle was a sportswriter for the Tucson Citizen for 22 years until the newspaper went out of business earlier this year.

He hadn’t made any preparation for a second career. But near the end of his Citizen days, another reporter stopped by Schmelzle’s desk and said, “You ought to teach, you’d be really good at it!”

It clicked.

At 63, Schmelzle decided to become a high school teacher. He’s taking classes at Pima Community College, and working to become recertified by taking Arizona Educator Proficiency Assessments.

He taught language arts in Illinois his first year out of college, but was more interested in becoming a sportswriter. He wrote for a couple of papers in the Midwest before coming to Tucson.

Schmelzle’s journalism career was long and fruitful. He started at the Citizen as a copy editor and went on to cover just about everything in the sports world: basketball, football, softball, tennis, wrestling and gymnastics. His favorite assignment was covering Olympic athletes at the University of Arizona.

“It was very rewarding, being able to associate with that type,” he says. “You learn from people.”

After Gannett, the newspaper chain that owned the Citizen, announced it planned to sell the newspaper, staffers waited months to learn their fate. “Morale was horrible. It was a tragedy,” Schmelzle says.

“Newspapers are just so much fun to work at. And of course we were convinced we were much better than the morning paper,” he adds, laughing. “Nobody wants to read an afternoon paper because by the time they get it, it’s not news anymore.”

Journalism is definitely taking a turn, Schmelzle says. But he doesn’t think journalism itself will fail.

“Maybe newspapers,” he says. “The paper part, I think, may be like a black and white TV some day.”

Schmelzle is grateful that Pima is here. Deciding to take classes at Pima was part of the process of deciding to become a teacher. “Without Pima, this thing wouldn’t be going, I don’t think.”

He started last summer with Tom Speer’s modern literature class. “It was great. I had never, ever been so into school.”

Schmelzle quit high school in the spring of his senior year because he knew he wouldn’t graduate. But he went back the next fall and completed his graduation requirements, then went on to graduate from the University of Notre Dame.

The way Speer conducted the literature course was just fabulous, Schmelzle says.

“I just felt that energy.” It transformed him. “Wow! This is it!” he thought.

Schmelzle had never considered himself an academic, but he got so involved in the class he became completely convinced that he wanted to teach.

“And things have just happened, one thing after another,” Schmelzle says.

This semester he’s enrolled in a humanities course and an American authors course. “I’ve always been a reader and always interested in characterization,” Schmelzle says.

When he was a journalist, he loved doing personality sketches. He could talk with someone for 20 minutes and grasp who they were and what they were about.

“I was pretty competent at that. The game and the competition were fine, but it’s the people that I was interested in.”

That interest in people will certainly help Schmelzle in the classroom.

He’s not nervous at all about relating to high school students, he says “because I’ve actually been relating to kids, to late teens, all my life.”

And he is excited about being a teacher this time around. His words almost trip over themselves. “I think understanding history, understanding literature … and math trains the brain … and logic …”

Schmelzle wants to be one person in kids’ lives who will help them find themselves.
The purpose of education is about becoming, he says.

“For the student to grow, you know, to find themselves somehow. Through all of the problems and the peer pressure and the culture.”

He tries not to think about the future too much, or to dwell on the past. When the Citizen folded, Schmelzle decided he wasn’t going to panic.

“I think it’s a blessing. I’m not cynical about it,” he says.

He told himself, “It’s not going to cause depression. I don’t care, it’s just not going to do it.”

Schmelzle thinks everything has a purpose.

“I’m a late bloomer at the age of 63, that’s pretty late,” he says, laughing. “Maybe I needed that much preparation.”

Schmelzle knows it could take a while to find a teaching position. He had one offer, but it fell through because of budget problems.

“Right now, I can take—so to speak—failure,” he says. “If you consider what failure is—not reaching the goal—I can take it.”

But he won’t be denied.

“A person has to do that,” Schmelzle says. “No matter what realm they’re doing it in, they have to keep going. They have to say ‘I will not fail.’”

Originally published December 10, 2009

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2: Work at Orphanage Provides Inspiration
3: Self Taught ‘techie’ re-engineers himself
4: Life ‘controlled chaos’ for military student
5: Retiree takes classes just for pleasure
6: Renaissance woman enjoys life-long learning