Texas Sports Editor Reflects On His Career and Future Leaders In the Field

Despite being a Texas sports reporter for more than 10 years, Carlos Silva Jr. admits that he doesn’t follow professional basketball as closely as he used to. He last rooted for the Dallas Mavericks, he said, when Dirk Nowitzki played for the team. 

Looking at his resume, it’s easy to see why Silva has other things on his mind besides the San Antonio Spurs playoff run. After spending five years as the Sports Editor for the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, he was named Gannett Sports Editor for Texas. Silva went from supervising four reporters between his duties at the Journal and the Amarillo Globe-News to supervising seven reporters at the other five newspapers Gannett owns in Texas, such as the El Paso Times and the Abilene Reporter-News.

A leadership role is not exactly where Silva, part of SJI’s 2008 class, pictured himself at the start of his career. His love for journalism sprang from a lack of interest in his then-current career path in engineering. 

“Quite frankly.. I wasn't good at sports, but the next best thing is to still be a part of said game, you still feel a part of the action, and get those great, great feelings,” he said. 

He still considers his current role to be a part of the sports realm, but his personal objectives and goals have changed to meet the responsibilities of leadership. 

“My field of play, if you will, is leading some writers, getting them better, and making sure that they can pursue their goals,” Silva said.

Two years into his position as Texas Sports Editor, Dan Spears, Deputy Sports Strategist for Community Journalism at Gannett, recommended that Silva apply for the 14th class of the APSE Foundation Leadership Fellowship. 

Each year, a cohort of fellows is chosen from a pool of applicants, and they embark on an eight-month journey that includes a fellowship weekend with training, participation in the APSE winter conference, judging for the APSE contest and other professional development opportunities. 

Silva, who’s part of a seven-person cohort, says the best part of the fellowship is the networking and mentorship. 

“That's really the biggest thing, is just kind of making those connections and finding out that, you know, sometimes what you think is your own problem is other peoples’ problems, and you can solve problems by talking with other people,” he said. 

For Silva, his biggest takeaways from the program are how much leadership revolves around relationships with others. He talked about the importance of relationships with others in leadership and how being a people manager is essential. 

He said to remember that, “You have other people that you are accountable for, and you have to make sure that they breach or surpass the goals that you know that the company is looking for.” 

Silva said that for some of his writers, their goals are to win awards and get competitive clips to submit to organizations like APSE or Texas Association of Managing Editors, and in the past year, they’ve been able to do that under his leadership. 

During his fellowship experience, which wraps up at the end of July, Silva has been able to think more about the future of sports journalism and sports journalism leadership. 

“I don't want to be cliché, I don't want to say it's bright, but it's certainly something where I do feel like there is a need for journalism going forward,” Silva said.

In his mind, moving towards the future necessitates supporting future newsroom leaders, especially those from underrepresented groups. 

“That's what's so special about this program, it's trying to find these people to make sure that not only they improve and provide those perspectives, but hopefully that they get inspired enough to kind of do the same and help others throughout their career,” he said. 

For now, Silva will continue his participation in the program and become, in his words, “part of a very, very unique fraternity.”