Jim O’Hara’s name is synonymous with sports in Rome and Floyd County.
After 30 years as a journalist, 20 of them with the Rome
News-Tribune, the veteran sports editor is leaving the newspaper.
O’Hara says it’s time to slow down, enjoy some other pursuits and spend more time with his wife.
“I’ve done this for 30 years so it’s obvious that I have loved it,” said O’Hara, as he prepared for coverage of Friday night’s scrimmage football games.
“I feel like it’s time to pay attention to the priorities in life,” like his wife Trish. “She’s my best friend,” said O’Hara.
But with prep football getting under way, it’s difficult for some to fathom that O’Hara won’t be in the press box or in the newsroom on game nights.
“It’s hard to imagine football season — or any sports season for that matter — and the annual Rome News-Tribune Holiday Festival basketball tournament without Jim O’Hara,” said Charlotte Atkins, Rome News-Tribune editor. “Jim is an institution in this newsroom and in this community. He’s worked hard and been passionate about local sports at all levels, and our readers and area sports programs have benefited from that these past two decades.”
O’Hara has spent his career in newspapers. After graduating from Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia in 1976 with a history degree, he started working at a bi-weekly newspaper in Farmville, Va. There he did a bit of everything — news and sports reporting, photography, layout and paste up, even working in the pressroom and helping wrangle the paperboys to get the paper delivered.
In 1985, he moved to Carrollton, where he was the sports editor at the Times Georgian newspaper.
Then in 1988, he joined the Rome News-Tribune as sports editor. During his tenure with the local newspaper, O’Hara has won numerous journalism awards from the Georgia Press Association, the Georgia Sports Writers Association and the Associated Press.
He’s also been involved in sports and news groups on local and state levels. He served on the Honors Committee for the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame, the nominating committee for the Georgia Golf Hall of Fame, as a former board member of the National Youth Sports Program, as past president of the Georgia Sports Writers Association and is on the NAIA Championship Game Host Committee that’s preparing for the December national championship in Rome. For the past decade, he’s also been among a select group of sports journalists who vote on the Heisman Trophy winner each year.
O’Hara says he plans to stay in Rome and will continue to be involved in the community. “I’ve always wanted to coach or teach,” said O’Hara. “Right now I feel like I’m at the point where I want to see what else is out there in the world.”
O’Hara is also known around town for his smooth tenor voice. He’s performed the national anthem at Rome Braves games and at the Steeplechase and says, “I love to sing in the choir” at St. Mary’s Catholic Church.
He also loves to cook and is still a history buff and plans to make more time for such pursuits when he’s no longer working nights and weekends.
But at least until Sept. 3, O’Hara is still the sports editor for the hometown newspaper and will be in the newsroom for one more Friday night to see football season officially kick off.
