Early news journalism |
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Roger began his professional journalism career as a news reporter for the Troy (NY) Reporter. After 10 months in Troy, he was wooed to the Toledo (OH) Blade, which he describes as being about as inspiring as a night shift at McDonald's. He stayed in Toledo for three months, saved up his paychecks, then backpacked his way across the country. Flew to Alaska and, after a brief stint as director of a community recreation center in Alaska, spent the next three years with the Kodiak Daily Mirror, where at the age of 24 he became editor of the whole shebang.
Roger began his professional journalism career as a news reporter for the Troy (NY) Reporter. After 10 months in Troy, he was wooed to the Toledo (OH) Blade, which he describes as being about as inspiring as a night shift at McDonald's. He stayed in Toledo for three months, saved up his paychecks, then backpacked his way across the country. Flew to Alaska and, after a brief stint as director of a community recreation center in Alaska, spent the next three years with the Kodiak Daily Mirror, where at the age of 24 he became editor of the whole shebang. |
A shift to sports |
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Roger left Kodiak and was shacked up in San Francisco when he read an advertisement placed by the recently sold Anchorage Daily News seeking sports reporters. He wrote the paper asking for the position, saying that although he had little to no sports reporting experience, he was nevertheless "cheap, easy and available." Times being what they were, the Daily News hired him on the spot despite being told by one job reference that Roger was a "headstrong sunuvabitch” who would be difficult to control.
Roger left Kodiak and was shacked up in San Francisco when he read an advertisement placed by the recently sold Anchorage Daily News seeking sports reporters. He wrote the paper asking for the position, saying that although he had little to no sports reporting experience, he was nevertheless "cheap, easy and available." Times being what they were, the Daily News hired him on the spot despite being told by one job reference that Roger was a "headstrong sunuvabitch” who would be difficult to control.
Roger split time his first year at the ADN between working in sports and filling in on the news copy desk. He was named Sports Editor at the beginning of 1982 and came out as gay to his boss almost immediately, making him the first openly gay sports editor at a major metropolitan daily newspaper. After three years, he stepped down to the assistant sports editor position in order to be able to explore more writing opportunities, then left the ADN in the summer of 1986 to become a sports feature writer and columnist with the Los Angeles Herald Examiner.
The fun and productive run at the LA Ex came to an abrupt end late in 1989 when the paper folded. Roger became Executive Sports Editor at the Albany (NY) Times Union in January 1990, then moved back to California late in 1992 to become Deputy Sports Editor of the Oakland Tribune.
Roger was indeed a headstrong sunuvabitch who was difficult to control — not only at the Daily News, but the Times Union and Tribune as well — but those sports departments won multiple journalism awards on his watch. The ADN was named winner of Best Special Section (all circulation categories) twice by the Associated Press Sports Editors; and Roger was nominated for a Pultiizer Prize for Specialized Reporting for his 1987 series on Death and Disability in Football. At the Trib, he oversaw a series on racism in Major League Baseball and a series on the impact of maternity on women in sports.
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Life after the dailies |
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Roger began easing out of daily newspaper reportings and left the dailies for good in mid-1995. During that transition Roger served a few years as head of sports for two Internet portals (eWorld and @Home), then shifted his attention to providing communications advice for non-profit organizations. After being forced to have both hips removed in 2001, he used the disability as a challenge to return to wrestling, the sport of his youth. While wrestling with Golden Gate Wrestling Club, Roger for the first time became engaged in the inclusive LGBT sports world. This led him to establish a youth wrestling program with GGWC in 2007. He became a sports columnist for the Bay Area Reporter the same year, became head coach at Mission High School in 2007.
In 2010, Roger began dialysis after a diagnosis of end stage renal failure. He established Equality Coaching Alliance, a communications network for 1,000 LGBT coaches and their supporters, in 2011. He continued to coach at Mission High, and in 2014 coached Australian wrestlers at the Gay Games in Cleveland.
In June of 2018, Roger received a kidney transplant. Five weeks later he was again coaching the Australian wrestlers at the Gay Games in Paris; he then came home and got the medical clearance to go on the trip he had just taken. Since then, he has coached wrestling clinics in Sydney, Melbourne, Los Angeles and Denver; and switched from Mission High to Berkeley High.
In June of 2020, he published his cookbook, “Recipes for Life and Other Disasters,” sharing the recipes he had gotten from family or developed on his own to entertain guests at semi-regular parties at his home.
Roger lives in Oakland, California with his husband, Eduardo Guardarramas, and their menagerie of dogs, cats, geckos, turtles, toads, fish — and one obnoxious parrot.
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Of note |
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· Inductee, Wrestlers WithOut Borders' Hall of Merit
· Inductee, LGBT Sports Hall of Fame
· Founder, Equality Coaching Alliance
· Founder, San Francisco Alliance Wrestling
· Winner, WWB Lifetime Achievement Award
· Winner, Gay Games wrestling gold medal (2006 and 2014)
· Winner, USAW Far Western Regional Championship silver medal (2004 — first wrestler to compete on artificial hips
· Writing has appeared in more than 20 online and print publications
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