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In this Jan. 10, 2020 file photo, Randolph Central School varsity basketball coach Kevin Hind, right, poses for a photo with one of his former players, Tim Bontemps. Bontemps, a former sports writer at the New York Post, the Washington Post and at ESPN, is now heading to the NBA\u2019s Atlanta Hawks as a strategic adviser.
\nP-J file photo by Tim Frank<\/p>\n
EDITOR\u2019S NOTE: The following article first appeared in The Post-Journal on April 20, 2019 after former area resident Tim Bontemps became an NBA writer for ESPN. Now, the 41-year-old Randolph Central School alum has joined the Atlanta Hawks\u2019 front office and will serve as a strategic adviser for the team.<\/p>\n
The headline, which read \u201cKyrie Irving finally has his playoff moment,\u201d was posted to ESPN.com earlier this week, but I was most interested in the byline directly below it that identified the author of the online story.<\/p>\n
Because as much as Irving\u2019s 37 points, six rebounds and seven assists were critical to the Boston Celtics\u2019 99-91 victory over Indiana in Game 2 of the NBA\u2019s Eastern Conference first-round playoff series Wednesday, my prime-time \u201cplayer\u201d \u2014 from this corner of the world anyway \u2014 was Tim Bontemps.<\/p>\n
Tim has been an NBA writer for ESPN since last November, the most recent stop in a professional odyssey that has also taken him from the New York Post to the Washington Post in the last dozen years.<\/p>\n
Oh, by the way, Tim, now 34, was born in Westfield, grew up in Sherman and Randolph, and graduated from Randolph Central School and St. Bonaventure University.<\/p>\n
Talk about a local guy making good.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I was a kid, I was a huge sports fan,\u201d Tim said recently. \u201cOne day \u2014 I think I was about 10 years old \u2014 I had an epiphany that I was not going to be a professional athlete, and so I decided if I wasn\u2019t going to be able to be a professional athlete, it would be pretty fun to go to games for free, and to go to games for free, the way to do that was to write about sports. When I was about 10, honestly, that was the conversation I had with myself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pretty prophetic.<\/p>\n
\u2014 \u2014 \u2014<\/p>\n
Jeff Bontemps is a farmer in Randolph and Tim spent much of his youth working with his dad on the farm.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile I didn\u2019t want to get into farming (as a career), it did form my childhood quite a bit,\u201d Tim said.<\/p>\n
In other words, life on a dairy farm meant that Tim learned to work nights, weekends and holidays \u2014 just as he\u2019s done during his sports writing career.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow I work on Christmas and I work on the Fourth of July,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of what I\u2019ve always done. It\u2019s also something I grew up with. My dad would go to work every single day. I didn\u2019t want to necessarily get into farming, but because of dad\u2019s example it showed me that working every day like that is a necessity, so it hasn\u2019t fazed me that I\u2019m in a 24-7, 365-day business now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Getting from the farm in Cattaraugus County to Boston\u2019s TD Garden, home of the Celtics, has been equal parts talent and tenaciousness.<\/p>\n
Recalled Tim: \u201cMy senior year (at Randolph Central School), I remember Paul Steward writing in my yearbook, \u2018Good luck trying to pursue this field. It\u2019s incredibly challenging and a crowded business to get into. The way you have to do it is you have to work harder than anyone else.\u2019<\/p>\n
That\u2019s always stuck with me.\u201d<\/p>\n
And hard work begets good fortune, which Tim readily acknowledges.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of people have been a lot of help,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you\u2019re going to do this job, you have to get very lucky.\u201d<\/p>\n
Upon graduating from high school, Tim matriculated at St. Bonaventure, which has an all-star cast of journalism alumni, including Adrian Wojnarowski, now the NBA Insider with ESPN, and Mike Vaccaro of the New York Post.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t even know those guys went to school there,\u201d Tim said. \u201cMy parents (Jeff and Ellen) are both from northern New Jersey, so I read both (Wojnarowski in The Times-Herald Record in Middletown, New Jersey and Vaccaro in the New York Post) when I would go visit my grandparents.\u201d<\/p>\n
Inspired by Wojnarowski and Vaccaro, Tim decided he wanted to try to be like them professionally, too, so he developed a game plan, even if he describes it now as \u201carrogant and stupid.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSpring semester of my freshman year I worked at the school paper and I went to the office of a professor named Pat Vecchio. He was one of the advisors of the student paper. Because I was a very stupid, 19-year-old kid, I basically went to his office and said, \u2018Listen, I\u2019d like to be a famous sports writer someday. Could you get me in touch with someone so I know how to do that?\u201d<\/p>\n
Vecchio, according to Tim, wrote an email address and name on a posted note.<\/p>\n
It changed the trajectory of a teenager\u2019s life.<\/p>\n
\u2014 \u2014 \u2014<\/p>\n
The name on that posted note on that day in 2004 was Vaccaro, a lead sports columnist at the New York Post. Within a couple of hours, he sent Tim back a two-page email with his contact information, along with that of Wojnarowski and Chuck Pollock, then the longtime sports editor at the Olean Times-Herald.<\/p>\n
The career path that Tim envisioned as a 10-year-old was maybe not crystal clear at that point, but he certainly had a direction, not to mention ambition.<\/p>\n
Vaccaro remembers that email.<\/p>\n
\u201cSadly, one of the reasons I remember so well is that Tim was one of the few students who didn\u2019t only reach out to me but was persistent about it,\u201d Vaccaro said via email. \u201cI told him at the time that alone put him ahead of the pace of a lot of his colleagues, so few of whom tend to take advantage of the \u2026 resources Bona has. But that was never a problem with Tim, and he stayed in regular contact and he did so in a way that it\u2019s 100 percent obvious why he\u2019s become the reporter he\u2019s become.\u201d<\/p>\n
Serving as an intern at the Times-Herald, beginning in his sophomore year at St. Bonaventure, Tim joined a long list of talented T-H alums, including Wojnarowski, Vaccaro, Tom Missel and Tyler Dunne, who is an Ellicottville native.<\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly, it helps that St. Bonaventure is there, but it\u2019s also certainly a testament to (Pollock) and the influence he\u2019s had on all of us,\u201d Tim said. \u201cHe\u2019s a terrific guy and a great mentor to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
After working at the school newspaper at St. Bonaventure and interning at the Times-Herald, Tim also did an internship at The Buffalo News. Shortly after his graduation from Bonas in 2007, he had an interview scheduled with a newspaper in South Carolina.<\/p>\n
But then a funny thing happened before he even left for the 5,000-circulation daily.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was in a pasture feeding cows with my dad, and Vac calls me,\u201d Tim said.<\/p>\n
The plans to go to the Deep South were scratched. The New York Post, Vaccaro said, had a clerking job, which would mean Tim could write once a week and assemble sports agate pages during his other four shifts.<\/p>\n
\u201c(Vac) got me in the door,\u201d Tim said. \u201cHe\u2019s just been a massive influence on me all the way through.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ever so slowly during his five years with the New York Post, his writing opportunities increased, essentially becoming a general-assignment staff member. By 2012, he took over the Nets basketball beat and broke some big stories along the way, including Jason Kidd\u2019s coaching departure from the team in 2014, before landing his dream job \u2014 national NBA writer at the Washington Post.<\/p>\n
\u201cI couldn\u2019t believe the (Washington) Post was interested in hiring me,\u201d Tim said. \u201cThat was the place I always dreamed of working. I think it\u2019s the gold standard in sports journalism newspaper-wise.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just broke down (when the call came). That was a huge deal for me. Honestly, I never thought I\u2019d leave there, to be frank. \u2026 To be able to say I was the national NBA writer for the Washington Post and have that on a business card was the neatest thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tim\u2019s work was certainly noticed. In fact, it was his coverage of Kevin Durant\u2019s signing with Golden State in 2016 that truly put the 2003 Randolph Central School grad on the national map.<\/p>\n
\u201cJuly 3-4-5 I wrote one story each day and it combined to have 2.5 million page views I think on our site, which was a subscription site,\u201d Tim recalled. \u201cThis was crazy. \u2026 Completely absurd. (Durant) was from (Washington, D.C.) and everybody was obsessed with him going to Golden State.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw those numbers and thought, \u2018Man, we really can\u2019t write enough about this and this team.\u2019 I went to my office and said, \u2018Look, I think I should move to Oakland and be around this team all the time. If I can do the job from New York, why not do the job from San Francisco and be on the West Coast and be around this team, and really be in the middle of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Given the greenlight to move to the Bay Area, Tim spent two years there covering Durant and the Warriors.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a weird transition for me,\u201d he admitted. \u201cI never lived anywhere other than Sherman, Randolph, Western New York and outside (New York City) where my family was at,\u201d he said. \u201d \u2026 It was a big adjustment.\u201d<\/p>\n
But he called the move an enjoyable one.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had an awesome apartment, I lived a mile from the Golden Gate Bridge, which for a kid from Western New York was wild. I\u2019d wake up every day and see it. The winters were far nicer \u2014 60 and sunny every single day of the year, which was nice. It was a cool experience. I met my future wife, which is nice. It all worked out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Professionally, Tim allowed as the Warriors weren\u2019t quite the compelling story he had hoped, certainly not like the Miami Heat were when LeBron James joined that franchise in 2010, but he enjoyed the experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sure it led me to getting this job at ESPN,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u2014 \u2014 \u2014<\/p>\n
In late October 2018, Tim announced that he was leaving the Washington Post for an NBA reporter job with ESPN. Based in Boston, he now focuses primarily on the Celtics, the Raptors and the Sixers, who are all currently in the playoffs.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me to get an opportunity to work with (Wojnarowski), Brian Windhorst and all the other people at ESPN, and to be at a place that has the resources, time and investment to really cover the NBA the way it does made it a decision I had to make,\u201d Tim said. \u201cAs much as I love the (Washington) Post, moving here (for) this job just made sense when they approached me with the opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vaccaro said that Tim\u2019s climb to the highest levels of the sports writing world was not only because of his talent, but also because of his work ethic.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere isn\u2019t an extra phone call he won\u2019t make or an extra source he won\u2019t talk to, and that means he writes with an authority that is impossible to make up,\u201d Vaccaro said. \u201cIt\u2019s a genuine skill.\u201d<\/p>\n
So Tim\u2019s appearance at Pat Vecchio\u2019s office his freshman year turned out to be exactly the bold move he had to make. Fast-forward 15 years, and Tim has joined an impressive list of Bona alums at the top of the sports writing world.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were drilled in fundamentals right from day one: reporting, writing, inverted pyramid, all of it,\u201d Vaccaro said. \u201cIt\u2019s like learning to play basketball. Nobody really likes working in form and fundamentals, but once you have those mastered it\u2019s easy to get better. Same deal in the J school. Plus, there are naturally (going to be) role models who have emerged and become successful, and that served as a great inspiration for me, as I\u2019m sure it does for a lot of others.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tim falls into that group, too.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been very fortunate in a very competitive field to find my way,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n CORTLAND \u2014 Five area residents competed in track & field events at the Empire State Senior Games at SUNY …<\/p>\n <\/p>\n CASSADAGA \u2014 Jason Anderson\u2019s 32 paced the Tuesday Night Men\u2019s League at Cassadaga Country Club.<\/p>\n Dan …<\/p>\n <\/p>\n BEMUS POINT \u2014 Registration for the Bemus Point 3-on-3 has been extended.<\/p>\n Participants in the basketball …<\/p>\n