Jim Peters' writing career formally started at the Purdue Exponent as a sophomore in college, though he'd been doing stats since grade school when he kept Major League Baseball standings on a chalk board and kickball home runs during recess at St. Bridget's School. He grew up watching Hobart football but actually went to Andrean, where his athletic glory was relegated to intramural basketball and a year of golf. The 3-point shot had yet to be implemented and a star-studded cast of 59ers that made it to state and semistate in consecutive years blocked his path to true hoops glory. That's his story and he's sticking to it. When he got to Purdue, he didn't really have a life plan because he'd never had to work, other than mowing lawns and delivering newspapers. After finding he could attend sporting events for free, get fed and get paid, by the column inch no less, for writing about a game, he knew what he wanted to do with his future. Alas, the Peach Bowl per diem and flights around the Big Ten were a misnomer of what was to come. Round about 35 years later, he still struggles to scratch two pennies together, but other than the ability to do better financially for his hard-working wife (Anita) and three kids (Carolyn, CJ and Cameron), he has no professional regrets and continues to love what he does -- telling the stories of the people involved in the sports at the high school level, where the game is at its purest, played for the love and not for the scholarship and salary. It's an honor to win awards (notably the 2016 Griddy's Media Award, the 2017 Corky Lamm Indiana Sports Writer of the Year Award, the 2019 Indiana Basketball Coaches Association Virgil Sweet Award, the 2023 Indiana Sportswriters and Sportscasters Hall of Fame, and the 2023 Indiana Football Coaches Association Rex Kirts Media Award), but the people you meet and the timeless relationships developed over the years are what  a writer cherishes the most. COVID-19 has pressed pause on his run in the newspaper business, highlighted by 20 years at the Times of Northwest Indiana, a period when the staff and sports section took a back seat to no one in the state of Indiana, but the passion still burns. His personal and professional ties across the three-county area remain strong and have helped in the transition to his latest sports writing endeavor. Feel free to reach out to him on Twitter if you have a story idea or just to talk to sports.