Tim Clinton keeps on writing
Tim Clinton has been writing sports professionally in the Seattle area since he started as a freelancer for the Federal Way News in June of 1980 at the age of 18.
He has continued with Robinson Newspapers, which now ranges from Des Moines to Ballard with its Westside Seattle website, to this day. He has served as Sports Editor since February of 1998.
Clinton also has two blogs. The Northwest Vistas travel blog has been up since December of 2021 and Federal Way Sports since March of 2023.
He just started covering high school sports for The News Tribune in Tacoma as a freelancer in January and is now taking the plunge into the world of websites on his own with Seattle Sports Stories.
Also keeping him busy is his job as a Direct Support Professional, or caregiver, for Total Living Concept since October of 2012.
Clinton has mostly covered high school athletics and summer sports like American Legion and Little League baseball but has covered college and professional sports as well. Besides following local athletes who reach the "big time," he has written about area college and pro sports schedules for the Robinsons since 1984 and for Federal Way Sports.
Then there were the occasional general features on Seattle sports personalities like Jim Zorn, Steve Largent, Willie Horton, Rene Lachemann, Steve Henderson, Bucky Jacobsen, Dick Fain and Kenny Mayne.
And visitors to the once annual Twin Lakes Celebrity Golf Tournament in Federal Way like Don James and Sonny Sixkiller of University of Washington football fame.
He has always kept an eye out on Washington and Seattle area college and pro sports as a fan since childhood.
As a reporter you can't get autographs, but as a fan he has met and gotten signatures from Slick Watts, Freddy Brown and Gaylord Perry, not to mention one "outsider" in Phil Niekro of the Atlanta Braves.
Clinton has witnessed many big Seattle sports events on television, and in person in the case of the Seattle Mariners mostly. Like their first opening game, the 1979 and 2023 Seattle All-Star games, Gaylord Perry's 300th career win, the fifth game of the 1995 playoff series win over the New York Yankees, the perfect game pitched by Felix Hernandez and Cal Raleigh's home run to return them to the playoffs in 2022.
Then there was the 1981 Apple Cup football game between the University of Washington and visiting Washington State University that would send the winner to the Rose Bowl as the Pac-12 champions.
That year the game, berth and title went to the Huskies in the end.
Now Clinton plans to revisit the aforementioned sports figures who are still with us, and to report on other past and present area personalities at seattlesportsstories.com.
Historic reviews on the teams are also included.