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CHATHAM COUNTY'S SOURCE FOR HIGHLIGHTS AND SPORTING NEWS |
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Lee Moody photo Though the defense . . . Northwood's Trahern Chaplin makes his move on Jet Michael Horton in their basketball game last Friday night. Chaplin scored on the play and the Chargers went on to win the game.
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Sports writer loved thrill of competing (Editor’s note: Bob Wachs was news editor and managing editor of The Chatham News/Record when James McLaughlin was a member of the paper’s sports department staff. Here he shares some things about the life of his friend and former coworker, who died Dec. 3) Sports were always a big part of James McLaughlin’s life. From the time he was a youngster playing on the courts and fields at the Harpers Crossroads community center to his days as a student-athlete at Chatham Central High School to the time in his life when he wrote about sports as his occupation, James loved activities that had a ball associated with them. James was an undersized high school football player who loved his school and loved to compete. James weighed maybe 130 or 140 pounds, not exactly conducive to overpowering someone on the gridiron but he brought something else to the game – lots of heart. Tim Tally was his coach in 1990, the year James was a senior and the Bears enjoyed some modest success with a 4-6 record for the season. Tally remembers James McLaughlin as not the fastest or strongest or most athletic member of the team but he also remembers him as someone who brought a necessary quality for success to the game -- dedication. “James was a small fellow,” Tally remembers, “but he was a hard worker who practiced and played hard. He had a great attitude and a great heart. I remember, too, how polite he was. It was always ‘yes, sir’ and ‘no, sir’ with James. “We used James as a receiver. He had good hands and caught the ball well,” Tally says. “Anything we asked James to do he would do.” Tally was also familiar with James in the classroom. “James was in my math classes,” Tally says. “He was a really good student, a hard worker in class, as well.” At Chatham Central, James was a member of the Beta Club, the Monogram Club, Fellowship of Christian Athletes and was president of the Foreign Language Club. Jesse Butts, a teacher at Chatham Central, knew James not only at school but also outside the classroom and the playing field. “He was not only my friend at school,” Butts says, “but he and his wife Kaycey were members of the church my family attended. “James was a strong Christian who loved his church, loved to sing in the choir, loved people and loved Kaycey.” At his church, Holly Springs Baptist in Broadway, James was a deacon, a member of the choir and worked in the church youth activities. “James was a kind and sincere person who was interested in Chatham Central athletics,” Butts says, “especially the football program. But that wasn’t all there was to him. He loved his brothers Jeff and Jon and helped them along through their lives. “He was a good friend.” After graduation from high school, James enrolled at UNC-Chapel Hill. It was while he was a student there that he began to write sports news and features for The Chatham News/Record. Eventually his part-time job became a full time one. James covered athletics in Chatham County’s three high schools for several years in the mid-1990’s before taking a job in Sanford nearer his home. Even after starting his writing career and moving on to his other work, James remained interested in sports and was an avid golfer who played often with his father Lynn. James McLaughlin married Kaycey McNeill of Broadway in June of 1997. They are the parents of a 14-month old son, Aiden James. Kaycey is a teacher at Broadway School. Funeral services for James McLaughlin were held on Saturday, Dec. 6 at Holly Springs Baptist Church. Burial followed in the church cemetery. James was 31. His pastor, the Rev. Jerry Parsons, and I conducted the service. The choir sang two rousing numbers and after the service, the director told me, “Those were two of James’s favorites.” I remember James not only as a student athlete and a former co-worker but also as a young friend, a peer of my children. He spent nights at my house with other young folks. We ate lunch and supper together through the years at The Chatham News. I married him and his lovely young bride. James was a young man of many traits but the one I think I’ll remember the longest was one I saw in him one December day when it was just he and I at the newspaper office. We decided to go to lunch, not all that unusual. On the way back to the car to come back to work we passed by a man ringing a bell at a Salvation Army kettle. James went over to him and dropped some money in to the pot. He caught up with me as we got into the car. I looked at him with a quizzical look and a raised eyebrow, not because James had made a gift but because that was the same fellow and same kettle that James had put some money into on our way into the restaurant. I didn’t say a word but James responded to my silent question when he said, “I just can’t go by one of those without putting something in.” That’s what James did to me and a lot of other folks – he put himself into our lives.
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