Think about it. No one ever forgets his first time. It’s that one magical moment that you remember for the rest of your life.

Me? I remember the time, place and actions like it was yesterday. Or maybe like it was a week and a half ago since that is when I had my very first time … covering a pro sporting event that is.

What did you think I was talking about?

Anyway, March 21, 2006 introduced me to the world of professional sports in a way I had not experienced before – up close and personal. I smile from ear to ear just thinking about it.

That’s when I attended the Los Angeles Clippers game with my handy dandy press credential that granted me access wherever I wanted to go in the New Orleans Arena. Well, almost wherever. I found out the hard way the Honeybees dressing room was off-limits.

I also realized during the game that, more than anything else, this is what I want to do with my life. Watch sports and write about it. Seriously, it’s all I’ve wanted to do since I was 9-years-old, and now I have the chance.

Loyola Communications professor Les East helped me get in contact with Scott Hall, the Hornets’ director of basketball communications, who granted me my press credential. So I asked East about his first time.

And … he didn’t remember. I guess that throws out my original theory. So I went a different route. I asked him about the time he realized he was positive sportswriting was the job for him.

“I was covering a Saints game in 1982, and Morten Andersen was attempting a 60-yard field goal to send the game into overtime. Growing up in New Orleans, I had been a Saints fan for a long time. So inside, I was hoping he would make it. He didn’t, and I felt bad for about two seconds. Then I realized I had a job to do, and I couldn’t let my emotions get in the way of that.”

Yeah, I still have to work on that emotions thing. Don’t think I could have gotten right to my job in two seconds … definitely would have taken like five or six.

Back to the game. The experience was like none other. I walked into the media room and ate some kind of chicken pasta, which otherwise wouldn’t be noteworthy except for the fact that it was really, really good pasta. I just wanted to throw that out there.

And then I went and took my seat above Section 120 with the rest of the apparent reject press credential recipients. I say this only because of the 12 seats in the section, two were filled. Among the missing was some guy writing for Tulane’s Hullabaloo. I don’t know who, but I didn’t hesitate to use the Tulane guy’s chair to prop my leg up.

During the beginning of the third quarter, I walked around the benches in order to chat it up with some of my media friends in press row … basically to go talk to East. After the game was a true experience.

As I stood outside the locker room waiting for Hornets’ coach Byron Scott to emerge, I realized something. Scott never smiles. Ever. The Hornets’ had just broken an 8-game losing streak, and Scott looked mad as hell. Maybe it’s his natural look.

Or maybe, just maybe, he can’t remember his first time.