When Lee Nichols left Rockdale in the fall of 1986 for the University of Texas, he planned on becoming a track coach.
After all, he ended his time at RHS on a high note, setting school records that stand more than 35 years later in the 3200 and 1600-meter run during his senior season, placing sixth in both events at the state meet. He was also headed to Austin to continue his career with the Texas Longhorns.
But when he got there, Nichols said he was in for a surprise.
“As far as making the transition from Rockdale to the University of Texas, it was a bit shocking,” Nichols said. “I discovered that telling people you’re the school record holder at little Rockdale High School doesn’t impress anybody very much.”
“Because when you get to Division I track and field, all of your teammates are also the record holders at their schools,” he said, “and some of them will say that their school record is five seconds faster than yours.”
The former Tiger said he loved track and being on the team but looking at some of his teammates’ times, which were on par with national champions and even Olympians in some cases, he didn’t quite have the natural talent to compete at their level and decided to focus his time more towards journalism after a track teammate quit and joined UT’s student-run newspaper, The Daily Texan.
“By that point, I knew that I wanted to be a writer instead of a coach,” he said. “I tried out for the staff and that’s when I switched my focus from sports to writing.”
In the spring of 1990, with graduation nearing, he saw that the Austin-American Statesman had a job opening for a country music columnist.
“By that time, I had really become a big fan of old school country music and I applied and got the job,” he said.
For about a year and a half, he worked at the state capitol’s dominant newspaper, but moved over to the Austin Chronicle, a publication that focuses more on the city’s culture and music scene.
While there, he intereviewed big names like Garth Brooks and Willie Nelson but also had the opportunity to write about other subjects, which got him into politics.
He stayed with the Chronicle as a free-lancer, a staff writer and even as assistant news editor for nearly two decades.
However, he went from writing about politics to working in the capitol after the collapse of the printed newspaper business led to his employer letting him go in 2011.
“They told me it’s nothing to do with your work,” he said. “We just have to lay some people off. So that’s what sent me off to the capitol.”
For the next eight years, he was the press secretary for state representative Leticia Van de Putte and also had the same role for Tex-Protects, a non-profit devoted to preventing child abuse.
Now out of politics, Nichols finds himself back in the realm of sports. He works as the executive director of the North Austin Soccer Alliance.
Although soccer pays his bills and he is a huge fan of the sport, he hasn’t forgotten his first love, track.
“I drifted away from track and field for a while,” he said, “but it was around the time of 1996 Olympics that I got back into it and within a couple of years I was covering it for the Track & Field News magazine.”
“My love of track and my love of writing came together,” he said.
Doing that since 2004, Nichols has covered several NCAA Championships and similar events and even got to ask Usain Bolt a question at a press conference while at the Penn Relays.
He’s also excited to cover the World Athletics Track and Field Championships in Eugene, Oregon, next July.
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