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Carl Waits, our very own sportswriter for the Century News, was awarded Sportswriter of the Year by the Texas Girls Coaches Association at their summer convention.
Waits, a long-time area resident, has covered local sports for 45 years, including 34 years for the Dripping Springs Century News. Waits taught in the Dripping Springs school district for three decades before retiring in 1996.
Waits said he never set out to be a sportswriter, but as teacher and coach in the Dripping Springs school district he felt it was important to celebrate and recognize the hard work student athletes
put into school and athletics. “The Austin (American-
Statesman) paper
just wasn’t interested in covering our local varsity sports so I would write up a story and submit it to the local paper,” Waits said.
“I did it for the kids,” he added.
He first wrote articles for the Hays Free Press, and then The Springer before working with the Century News. “When I wrote those early articles I was still teaching, coaching and driving a bus,” Waits said.
Carl has now been retired from teaching and coaching for more years than most people work. But retirement does not mean doing nothing to Waits.
“I like having a schedule every day,' he said, “It keeps me young. Seeing the kids every day keeps me young and gives me a purpose.”
As a school bus driver, Waits gets up at 4:30 a.m. to get ready for his two morning and two afternoon routes.
“I now drive the children of the children I use to drive to school twenty years ago.”
Waits said he will continue driving at least for this next school year, which begins August 13. “As long as my health allows it, I’ll drive. I like staying busy.” Waits said.
Waits taught history and physical education at the middle and high school levels in Dripping Springs. As part of his history lessons about Texas he started taking video footage of old buildings in town and asking neighbors to share what they knew about the families who built them and lived in them.
“People love to talk about local history and soon I was putting together articles, to record what I had learned,” he said.
Over a period of 13 years, he had compiled nearly 600 pages of notes, all typed on a manual typewriter and had enough to publish a book, which he did.
In 2003, he published “The Complete History of Dripping Springs Texas,” a fascinating catalogue of the people, places and businesses of Dripping Springs dating back to 1821. The book is filled with stories and photos of the area’s founding families.
“I was a history teacher and became a history writer, because I wanted to share what I learned with my students. I became a sportswriter because I wanted to recognize the athletes who worked hard, not just in the major sports but all sports. To me, there are no ‘minor’ sports,' he added.
His accidental vocation as a sportswriter may have rubbed off on his son, Tim Waits. “Early on, Tim was interested in sports statistics and sports coverage. He went on to study journalism in college and wrote for the New Braunfels paper and now writes for the Temple Telegram where he has won many awards,” Waits said.
Carl said he does not consider himself an award-winning writer despite the recognition from the Texas Girls Coaches Association. Waits comes across as a humble man saying “I’m not much in putting myself out there to pat myself on the back. Getting awards for doing something you really enjoy just doesn't seem right to me,” Waits added. He said a coach friend nominated him for the award.
“Carl is a legend in Dripping Springs, only one small part of which comes from his abilities as a sportswriter,” Dalton Sweat, publisher of the Century News, said. “He has committed so much of his life to making Dripping Springs the community it is today by leading and lifting up our youth. This award couldn’t be more well deserved, and we are lucky to have had him writing for the Century News for so many decades.”
Waits was born in 1942 in Durango, Texas and grew up in Rogers, Texas where he graduated from Rogers High School in 1959. “I graduated in a class of 47 people, I played football, basketball, baseball and track. We were a B-division and eventually move to division 1-A and got to play the likes of Belton.'
After high school, Waits he attended Sam Houston State earning his BS in 1963 and M.Ed. in 1965. He moved to the Dripping Springs area following college where he took a teaching history, physical education and driver education.
His coaching stints included head football coach for 12 seasons; head basketball coach for 5 seasons; head track coach (8 years); head golf coach (13 seasons) and middle school coach.
In addition to his published history book about Dripping Springs, Waits also chronicled the history of area high school sports with a compilation of stories, and team, and individual player school records. The records are now part of the DSISD history archives.
Waits and his wife Carolyn Sue (Susie) live in Driftwood and recently celebrated 62 years of marriage. They have a son, Tim and two granddaughters (Emily and Allison) and one greatgrandson (Daniel).
