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Confessions of an accidental crime writer with imposter syndrome
If you'd asked me five years ago if I intended to write crime fiction, I would have either laughed awkwardly or given you a suspicious side-eye. Me, write crime? I'm a GP with special interests in mental health and education, not a detective or criminologist. The old adage of "write what you know" would suggest I write medical dramas or literary fiction about meaty philosophical topics. But sometimes, life has other ideas. I started a professional writing and editing course during the COVID-19 pandemic as an antidote to the chaos, an attempt to find some peace as the world lost its collective marbles. I'd always wanted to study writing, but the time was never right. It was pushed aside as I focused on a "real" career and family. After working in a respiratory clinic - swabbing noses in a drive-through marquee in the carpark, taking on the role of (mostly metaphorical) punching bag for a stressed and angry public - I took a time-out from medicine. I was burnt out and ready for a break. The course gave me crucial structure, and importantly for someone with my neurotype, it gave me deadlines. For the first time in my writing career, others read my words and offered feedback, which was humbling and wonderful. I felt the first glimmer of being a real writer. In medicine, there is often a defining moment where the role and identity of "doctor" clunks into place. For me, it was when I started training in general practice, after several years of floating around sub-specialties trying to find a fit. A patient with complex medical issues had returned for a follow-up appointment and made the off-hand comment that I was now her doctor. She was my patient. She was like a mirror, and my identity was a reflection of hers, an inverse dance. I was the doctor to her patient. A symbiosis. Similarly, I was not able to identify as a writer until I had readers to reflect that image. This is not to say that writing for yourself, in private, is without worth; anyone who writes is a writer. But for years, I struggled to use the word for myself, and if I did, I would qualify it with various adjectives - aspiring, closet, amateur - in an attempt to express my humility, my impostor syndrome, my Australian self-deprecation. One of my assessment tasks was a character study. The protagonist for Stillwater came to me fully formed, complete with backstory, flaws, needs and wants and goals. He was inspired by a discussion I had with a patient about how every person you meet is hiding something. Everyone has secrets; there are very few people who show their entire self to the world. For another class, I was asked to outline a novel. I took my complex character and wrote out his story; I wrote summaries of the chapters and thought that was that. And then the work started. Because, obviously, no plan survives contact with the enemy. My ambitious outline lasted as long as it took me to write the first chapter, which was eventually scrapped. As anyone who has ever tried to write a novel will attest, the first three to six chapters are often a warm up; the real story starts later than you think. It turns out that I am not a planner. I had to write the story to know what it was. My characters were disobedient and wouldn't stick to the script. This meant several rounds of iterative drafting and re-drafting as I realised what was working and what wasn't. Eventually, I wrote THE END and thought I was done. I got some feedback, changed a few things, and then thought, what now? I was lucky enough to send my manuscript to the right agent at the right time, and guess what - more feedback. So then, the work really started. There is a quote - Seneca, I believe - that a gem cannot be polished without friction. This is the most apt description of the editing process I've ever heard. Editing is all about cutting out what doesn't work to expose that which does, and then buffing it to make it shine. For a writer, there is definitely friction in this. It's hard to see shards of your story on the cutting-room floor. One of the biggest questions I had to answer was about genre. This was a rookie dilemma, one I should have put more thought into earlier. What was it that I'd written? It was a novel, but where did it fit in? Was it contemporary fiction? A coming-of-age story? A book needs a comfortable home on a shelf in a bookshop, alongside its family, in order to find the right reader. It came as a minor revelation to me that what I'd written fit best on the crime shelf. Yes, many of the characters are criminals. And there is maybe a murder. But I'd always thought of crime fiction as police procedural or cosy mystery, which Stillwater is not. In conversations since, many have asked why I chose to write crime, and my answer is: I didn't. It came about through experimentation, through following a story through to its logical conclusion and understanding the characters and their motivations - and it turns out that "write what you know" is still appropriate. The skills I've learned as a GP and counsellor translate well to crime: pattern recognition and analytical thinking, knowledge of the human body and psyche - not to mention a level of comfort with blood, gore and death. So while it was not my intention to write crime, that is indeed what I've done. I'm very happy to add another identity, as a crime writer, to my list - no awkward laughs or suspicious side-eye needed. If you'd asked me five years ago if I intended to write crime fiction, I would have either laughed awkwardly or given you a suspicious side-eye. Me, write crime? I'm a GP with special interests in mental health and education, not a detective or criminologist. The old adage of "write what you know" would suggest I write medical dramas or literary fiction about meaty philosophical topics. But sometimes, life has other ideas. I started a professional writing and editing course during the COVID-19 pandemic as an antidote to the chaos, an attempt to find some peace as the world lost its collective marbles. I'd always wanted to study writing, but the time was never right. It was pushed aside as I focused on a "real" career and family. After working in a respiratory clinic - swabbing noses in a drive-through marquee in the carpark, taking on the role of (mostly metaphorical) punching bag for a stressed and angry public - I took a time-out from medicine. I was burnt out and ready for a break. The course gave me crucial structure, and importantly for someone with my neurotype, it gave me deadlines. For the first time in my writing career, others read my words and offered feedback, which was humbling and wonderful. I felt the first glimmer of being a real writer. In medicine, there is often a defining moment where the role and identity of "doctor" clunks into place. For me, it was when I started training in general practice, after several years of floating around sub-specialties trying to find a fit. A patient with complex medical issues had returned for a follow-up appointment and made the off-hand comment that I was now her doctor. She was my patient. She was like a mirror, and my identity was a reflection of hers, an inverse dance. I was the doctor to her patient. A symbiosis. Similarly, I was not able to identify as a writer until I had readers to reflect that image. This is not to say that writing for yourself, in private, is without worth; anyone who writes is a writer. But for years, I struggled to use the word for myself, and if I did, I would qualify it with various adjectives - aspiring, closet, amateur - in an attempt to express my humility, my impostor syndrome, my Australian self-deprecation. One of my assessment tasks was a character study. The protagonist for Stillwater came to me fully formed, complete with backstory, flaws, needs and wants and goals. He was inspired by a discussion I had with a patient about how every person you meet is hiding something. Everyone has secrets; there are very few people who show their entire self to the world. For another class, I was asked to outline a novel. I took my complex character and wrote out his story; I wrote summaries of the chapters and thought that was that. And then the work started. Because, obviously, no plan survives contact with the enemy. My ambitious outline lasted as long as it took me to write the first chapter, which was eventually scrapped. As anyone who has ever tried to write a novel will attest, the first three to six chapters are often a warm up; the real story starts later than you think. It turns out that I am not a planner. I had to write the story to know what it was. My characters were disobedient and wouldn't stick to the script. This meant several rounds of iterative drafting and re-drafting as I realised what was working and what wasn't. Eventually, I wrote THE END and thought I was done. I got some feedback, changed a few things, and then thought, what now? I was lucky enough to send my manuscript to the right agent at the right time, and guess what - more feedback. So then, the work really started. There is a quote - Seneca, I believe - that a gem cannot be polished without friction. This is the most apt description of the editing process I've ever heard. Editing is all about cutting out what doesn't work to expose that which does, and then buffing it to make it shine. For a writer, there is definitely friction in this. It's hard to see shards of your story on the cutting-room floor. One of the biggest questions I had to answer was about genre. This was a rookie dilemma, one I should have put more thought into earlier. What was it that I'd written? It was a novel, but where did it fit in? Was it contemporary fiction? A coming-of-age story? A book needs a comfortable home on a shelf in a bookshop, alongside its family, in order to find the right reader. It came as a minor revelation to me that what I'd written fit best on the crime shelf. Yes, many of the characters are criminals. And there is maybe a murder. But I'd always thought of crime fiction as police procedural or cosy mystery, which Stillwater is not. In conversations since, many have asked why I chose to write crime, and my answer is: I didn't. It came about through experimentation, through following a story through to its logical conclusion and understanding the characters and their motivations - and it turns out that "write what you know" is still appropriate. The skills I've learned as a GP and counsellor translate well to crime: pattern recognition and analytical thinking, knowledge of the human body and psyche - not to mention a level of comfort with blood, gore and death. So while it was not my intention to write crime, that is indeed what I've done. I'm very happy to add another identity, as a crime writer, to my list - no awkward laughs or suspicious side-eye needed. If you'd asked me five years ago if I intended to write crime fiction, I would have either laughed awkwardly or given you a suspicious side-eye. Me, write crime? I'm a GP with special interests in mental health and education, not a detective or criminologist. The old adage of "write what you know" would suggest I write medical dramas or literary fiction about meaty philosophical topics. But sometimes, life has other ideas. I started a professional writing and editing course during the COVID-19 pandemic as an antidote to the chaos, an attempt to find some peace as the world lost its collective marbles. I'd always wanted to study writing, but the time was never right. It was pushed aside as I focused on a "real" career and family. After working in a respiratory clinic - swabbing noses in a drive-through marquee in the carpark, taking on the role of (mostly metaphorical) punching bag for a stressed and angry public - I took a time-out from medicine. I was burnt out and ready for a break. The course gave me crucial structure, and importantly for someone with my neurotype, it gave me deadlines. For the first time in my writing career, others read my words and offered feedback, which was humbling and wonderful. I felt the first glimmer of being a real writer. In medicine, there is often a defining moment where the role and identity of "doctor" clunks into place. For me, it was when I started training in general practice, after several years of floating around sub-specialties trying to find a fit. A patient with complex medical issues had returned for a follow-up appointment and made the off-hand comment that I was now her doctor. She was my patient. She was like a mirror, and my identity was a reflection of hers, an inverse dance. I was the doctor to her patient. A symbiosis. Similarly, I was not able to identify as a writer until I had readers to reflect that image. This is not to say that writing for yourself, in private, is without worth; anyone who writes is a writer. But for years, I struggled to use the word for myself, and if I did, I would qualify it with various adjectives - aspiring, closet, amateur - in an attempt to express my humility, my impostor syndrome, my Australian self-deprecation. One of my assessment tasks was a character study. The protagonist for Stillwater came to me fully formed, complete with backstory, flaws, needs and wants and goals. He was inspired by a discussion I had with a patient about how every person you meet is hiding something. Everyone has secrets; there are very few people who show their entire self to the world. For another class, I was asked to outline a novel. I took my complex character and wrote out his story; I wrote summaries of the chapters and thought that was that. And then the work started. Because, obviously, no plan survives contact with the enemy. My ambitious outline lasted as long as it took me to write the first chapter, which was eventually scrapped. As anyone who has ever tried to write a novel will attest, the first three to six chapters are often a warm up; the real story starts later than you think. It turns out that I am not a planner. I had to write the story to know what it was. My characters were disobedient and wouldn't stick to the script. This meant several rounds of iterative drafting and re-drafting as I realised what was working and what wasn't. Eventually, I wrote THE END and thought I was done. I got some feedback, changed a few things, and then thought, what now? I was lucky enough to send my manuscript to the right agent at the right time, and guess what - more feedback. So then, the work really started. There is a quote - Seneca, I believe - that a gem cannot be polished without friction. This is the most apt description of the editing process I've ever heard. Editing is all about cutting out what doesn't work to expose that which does, and then buffing it to make it shine. For a writer, there is definitely friction in this. It's hard to see shards of your story on the cutting-room floor. One of the biggest questions I had to answer was about genre. This was a rookie dilemma, one I should have put more thought into earlier. What was it that I'd written? It was a novel, but where did it fit in? Was it contemporary fiction? A coming-of-age story? A book needs a comfortable home on a shelf in a bookshop, alongside its family, in order to find the right reader. It came as a minor revelation to me that what I'd written fit best on the crime shelf. Yes, many of the characters are criminals. And there is maybe a murder. But I'd always thought of crime fiction as police procedural or cosy mystery, which Stillwater is not. In conversations since, many have asked why I chose to write crime, and my answer is: I didn't. It came about through experimentation, through following a story through to its logical conclusion and understanding the characters and their motivations - and it turns out that "write what you know" is still appropriate. The skills I've learned as a GP and counsellor translate well to crime: pattern recognition and analytical thinking, knowledge of the human body and psyche - not to mention a level of comfort with blood, gore and death. So while it was not my intention to write crime, that is indeed what I've done. I'm very happy to add another identity, as a crime writer, to my list - no awkward laughs or suspicious side-eye needed. If you'd asked me five years ago if I intended to write crime fiction, I would have either laughed awkwardly or given you a suspicious side-eye. Me, write crime? I'm a GP with special interests in mental health and education, not a detective or criminologist. The old adage of "write what you know" would suggest I write medical dramas or literary fiction about meaty philosophical topics. But sometimes, life has other ideas. I started a professional writing and editing course during the COVID-19 pandemic as an antidote to the chaos, an attempt to find some peace as the world lost its collective marbles. I'd always wanted to study writing, but the time was never right. It was pushed aside as I focused on a "real" career and family. After working in a respiratory clinic - swabbing noses in a drive-through marquee in the carpark, taking on the role of (mostly metaphorical) punching bag for a stressed and angry public - I took a time-out from medicine. I was burnt out and ready for a break. The course gave me crucial structure, and importantly for someone with my neurotype, it gave me deadlines. For the first time in my writing career, others read my words and offered feedback, which was humbling and wonderful. I felt the first glimmer of being a real writer. In medicine, there is often a defining moment where the role and identity of "doctor" clunks into place. For me, it was when I started training in general practice, after several years of floating around sub-specialties trying to find a fit. A patient with complex medical issues had returned for a follow-up appointment and made the off-hand comment that I was now her doctor. She was my patient. She was like a mirror, and my identity was a reflection of hers, an inverse dance. I was the doctor to her patient. A symbiosis. Similarly, I was not able to identify as a writer until I had readers to reflect that image. This is not to say that writing for yourself, in private, is without worth; anyone who writes is a writer. But for years, I struggled to use the word for myself, and if I did, I would qualify it with various adjectives - aspiring, closet, amateur - in an attempt to express my humility, my impostor syndrome, my Australian self-deprecation. One of my assessment tasks was a character study. The protagonist for Stillwater came to me fully formed, complete with backstory, flaws, needs and wants and goals. He was inspired by a discussion I had with a patient about how every person you meet is hiding something. Everyone has secrets; there are very few people who show their entire self to the world. For another class, I was asked to outline a novel. I took my complex character and wrote out his story; I wrote summaries of the chapters and thought that was that. And then the work started. Because, obviously, no plan survives contact with the enemy. My ambitious outline lasted as long as it took me to write the first chapter, which was eventually scrapped. As anyone who has ever tried to write a novel will attest, the first three to six chapters are often a warm up; the real story starts later than you think. It turns out that I am not a planner. I had to write the story to know what it was. My characters were disobedient and wouldn't stick to the script. This meant several rounds of iterative drafting and re-drafting as I realised what was working and what wasn't. Eventually, I wrote THE END and thought I was done. I got some feedback, changed a few things, and then thought, what now? I was lucky enough to send my manuscript to the right agent at the right time, and guess what - more feedback. So then, the work really started. There is a quote - Seneca, I believe - that a gem cannot be polished without friction. This is the most apt description of the editing process I've ever heard. Editing is all about cutting out what doesn't work to expose that which does, and then buffing it to make it shine. For a writer, there is definitely friction in this. It's hard to see shards of your story on the cutting-room floor. One of the biggest questions I had to answer was about genre. This was a rookie dilemma, one I should have put more thought into earlier. What was it that I'd written? It was a novel, but where did it fit in? Was it contemporary fiction? A coming-of-age story? A book needs a comfortable home on a shelf in a bookshop, alongside its family, in order to find the right reader. It came as a minor revelation to me that what I'd written fit best on the crime shelf. Yes, many of the characters are criminals. And there is maybe a murder. But I'd always thought of crime fiction as police procedural or cosy mystery, which Stillwater is not. In conversations since, many have asked why I chose to write crime, and my answer is: I didn't. It came about through experimentation, through following a story through to its logical conclusion and understanding the characters and their motivations - and it turns out that "write what you know" is still appropriate. The skills I've learned as a GP and counsellor translate well to crime: pattern recognition and analytical thinking, knowledge of the human body and psyche - not to mention a level of comfort with blood, gore and death. So while it was not my intention to write crime, that is indeed what I've done. I'm very happy to add another identity, as a crime writer, to my list - no awkward laughs or suspicious side-eye needed.
Yahoo
22-07-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
BYU football adds Stillwater DL Nehemiah Kolone to 2026 recruiting class
Stillwater defensive lineman Nehemiah Kolone announced his commitment to BYU's 2026 recruiting class Monday night. A three-star prospect according to 247Sports, the 6-foot-4 and 260-pound Kolone had three hats — BYU, Michigan State and Oklahoma State — on his table during his commitment ceremony at his high school. After a quick speech, Kolone announced he'll be a Cougar. Kolone missed the first part of his junior season but played in nine games, finishing with 35 tackles, six tackles for loss and a forced fumble as Stillwater made it to the Class 6A-II semifinals. Kolone was named the Central Oklahoma Athletic Conference Defensive Lineman of the Year and was even more productive as a sophomore, recording 73½ tackles, nine tackles for loss and 6½ sacks. More: Vote: Which Oklahoma high school football team has the best helmet? Nick Sardis covers high school sports for The Oklahoman. Have a story idea for Nick? He can be reached at nsardis@ or on Twitter at@nicksardis. Sign up forThe Varsity Club newsletter to access more high school coverage. Support Nick's work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing adigital subscription today at This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: BYU football adds DL Nehemiah Kolone to 2026 recruiting class
Yahoo
22-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Stillwater: Community development director is hired
Jason Zimmerman, interim community development director in Stillwater, is dropping the 'interim' from his title. Zimmerman, who has served as the city's part-time interim community development director since February, has been hired for the permanent position. He will be transitioning to the new position during the rest of July and August and will start full-time Sept. 2. His salary will be $158,538. Zimmerman, 52, of Minneapolis, has worked as a planner for HKGi since January 2024. He previously worked as the planning manager and as a planner for Golden Valley. Stillwater City Administrator Joe Kohlmann said Zimmerman impressed officials with his 'can-do attitude' and ability to 'address issues head-on.' 'Jason is an articulate professional who has demonstrated a strong commitment to the betterment of Stillwater,' Kohlmann said. 'He gets along very well with coworkers, elected officials, and members of the public.' Zimmerman grew up in Waconia, Minn., a rural community west of Minneapolis, and said 'Stillwater has that same small-town feel, but with an oversized impact on the surrounding area due to its history and draw for visitors.' 'I'm looking forward to helping capture that enthusiasm and sense of pride as we work to update and improve policies, procedures, and a shared vision for the future,' he said. 'Stillwater seems poised to cement itself as a premiere city, and I'm excited to be a part of that.' Zimmerman has a master's degree in city planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a bachelor's degree in economics from Carleton College. In his spare time, he enjoys running ultra-marathons — '50 miles, 100 miles and even some that are over 100 miles,' he said. 'The longest distance I've ever run at one time is 180 miles. That was in Moab, Utah. That took a little more than four days. There was some sleep sprinkled in there.' He and his wife, Amie DeHarpporte, have four children and numerous household pets. Tim Gladhill, who previously held the position, left Stillwater in August 2024 to become community development director in Brooklyn Park. Danette Parr, the community development director in Maplewood, was hired in November to do the job; she resigned effective Dec. 31. Parr, who returned to her job in Maplewood, said Monday that Stillwater 'wasn't the fit (she) was looking for and, unfortunately, sometimes you just don't know that until you get there.' Related Articles Stillwater cracks down on use of e-moto bikes on city trails After spending decades as an actor, Reed Sigmund tries his hand at directing Stillwater installs cameras, license-plate readers to deter crime Stillwater: Silver Sobriety marks 10 years with new location, new executive director St. Croix River bridge inspection underway; delays expected Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
13-07-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Oklahoma DL prospect Nehemiah Kolone commits to BYU
BYU assistant coach Sione Po'uha instructs players during a practice before the 2024 Alamo Bowl. | Jaren Wilkey/BYU BYU just picked up a commitment out of the backyard of another Big 12 school. 3-star defensive lineman Nehemiah Kolone has committed to the Cougars, he announced Monday via social media. Kolone hails from Stillwater, Oklahoma, playing his high school ball less than a mile away from Oklahoma State's campus. Advertisement Over the past two seasons at Stillwater High, Kolone has recorded 99 total tackles — 14 for loss — and five sacks in 21 games. Based on 247 Sports composite score, the 6-foot-4, 255 pound Kolone is ranked as the No. 19 prospect from Oklahoma and the No. 104 defensive lineman in the country. He chose BYU over other offers from Oklahoma State, Michigan State, Arizona, Baylor and Kansas State, among a number of other programs. What BYU's 2026 recruiting class currently looks like
New York Times
10-07-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Ethan Holliday could go No. 1 in the MLB Draft. It would be a pick 4 generations in the making
STILLWATER, Okla. — In the leadup to Sunday's MLB Draft, many pundits will note the Holliday family's deep baseball ties. Matt Holliday played 15 years in the major leagues and made seven All-Star games. His oldest son, Jackson, was drafted first overall three years ago and is now the second baseman for the Baltimore Orioles. Advertisement Now, Ethan Holliday is next in line for a baseball dynasty forged under the endless skies of Oklahoma. He is a gifted 6-foot-4 shortstop with tremendous raw power from the left side. He has a chance to go to the Washington Nationals first overall, and if he doesn't go there, draft experts predict he will go fourth to the Colorado Rockies, the same organization that drafted his father. Some may mention that the line doesn't actually start with Matt, Jackson, and Ethan. Tom Holliday — Matt's father and Jackson's and Ethan's grandfather — was a longtime Division I baseball coach, including a seven-year run as the coach at Oklahoma State. His brother, Dave, is a veteran scout for the Philadelphia Phillies. Matt's brother, Josh, is now the coach at OSU. There are other families out there who have made baseball their business. The Alous, the Boones, the Griffeys. Thirteen pairs of brothers have been drafted as first-round picks. B.J. Upton went second in 2002, and Justin Upton went first in 2005. But if Ethan were to go No. 1, it would be the first time in baseball history two brothers have both been 1-1 picks. Only Peyton and Eli Manning have done that in any major American sport. Try to explain how Jackson and Ethan both grew up to be so good, and everyone in the family shrugs. Part nature, part nurture. 'This was all by accident,' Tom says. No amount of nature, though, guarantees this level of familial athletic success. No amount of nurture ensures that even two physically gifted boys will become elite prospects at this level. That kind of feat takes generations to build. To grasp how all this came to be, you have to rewind more than 100 years. To understand how the Hollidays built a foundation where baseball is intertwined with family, where relentless work is assumed and exceptional achievement is expected, you have to leave Oklahoma's red-dirt plains, take an oblong detour through the desert and head to the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. That's where a man named Donald Holliday had a dream. Donald Holliday was born in 1918 in the little town of Somerfield, Pa., a place they later razed and flooded to create the Youghiogheny Dam. He was one of 11 children. Most of his siblings were into fishing or hunting, the mountain life. Donald had an affinity for baseball. As the family legend goes, the famed Yankees scout Paul Krichell discovered Don. He was a talented catcher, and the scout began making arrangements for Don to report to spring training. But this was the outset of World War II. Don was called into the Army. He was in North Africa when a blast went off and ruptured his left eardrum. By the time the war was over, he still had dreams of showing up to Yankees spring training and sliding into pinstripes. But his hearing was permanently damaged. He was older now and could hardly get into a squat. Real life beckoned. He never stopped following the Yankees. Advertisement Donald became a truck driver in Uniontown, 55 miles outside Pittsburgh. He worked from 4 a.m. until sundown. For his youngest boys Tom and Dave, baseball was a way to capture his attention. 'A way to connect with him,' Dave said. The boys stood on the porch under Pennsylvania stars, swinging a bat while Pittsburgh Pirates games sounded over the radio. Sometimes Donald sat in the kitchen, radio to his right ear, barely able to decipher the crackling signal of the Yankees game. On the rare occasions Donald got off early on a Friday, he would bound through the door, smile on his face, pep in his voice. 'Get in the car,' he'd say, 'We're going to New York.' They made the pilgrimage to old Yankee Stadium, stayed for the games Saturday and Sunday, then drove back to Pennsylvania. 'He was so into baseball,' Tom said all these years later. 'We had to explore it.' In 1971, a letter from the desert helped Tom set a new trajectory. Don sat across the kitchen table, smoke billowing from a cigarette in his hand, while his son shuffled through a stack of mail. Notre Dame, Ohio State, Michigan State, Pitt and more. Tom was a terrific high school quarterback on a losing team with a shoddy offensive line. He was also an all-region baseball player. At that table, Tom weighed his options. He wanted to play baseball, but he was from a cold-weather state, and only one place wanted him on a baseball-only offer. That was Yavapai College, a small school in the middle of Arizona with a swashbuckling coach named Gary Ward. Sometimes Tom saw the letters, assumed they were advertisements for a strange school whose name he couldn't pronounce. Something in Donald Holliday's gut told him Tom should take those letters more seriously. 'That guy writes you all the time,' he said. 'Maybe give that guy a chance.' 'He didn't say much,' Tom says of his father. 'But when he did, you listened.' It's a Thursday morning in Jenks, Okla., south of Tulsa, at the 6A state baseball tournament. Matt Holliday leans forward and grabs onto a black chain-link fence. Cowbells ring from the stands, and Stillwater High players run onto the field. None of them move with quite the same grace as Ethan Holliday. He's tall and sleek, with long hair, all-American looks and one hell of a pedigree. Advertisement 'I want my kids to pursue their passion,' Matt says. 'The fact that it matches up with something I'm passionate about, it makes it all the better. If they had picked music or something like that, I would be able to stand by and clap but not necessarily able to help.' Tom, Josh and all of Matt's family live within a 10-mile radius in Stillwater, the kind of college town where people come back and measure time against the institutions that remain. The Hollidays are one of those institutions. Ethan hits left-handed and grades out with easy plus power. He's bigger and a more aggressive swinger than his older brother. Their games differ, and so do their personalities. Jackson, slowly finding his groove in his second season with the Orioles, is level-headed and serious, a lot like Matt. Everyone says Ethan is more emotional, maybe like his mother, Leslee. Maybe more like Tom. 'A little bit more life of the party, wears his emotions a little bit more on his sleeve,' Matt says. 'I think that's part of having kids. All your kids are different.' Leslee is the great-niece of Bob Fenimore, an All-American football player at Oklahoma State who finished third in the 1945 Heisman Trophy race. It is not only the Holliday genes that make Ethan and Jackson preternaturally gifted. But the baseball aptitude? That's a distinctly Holliday trait. Before the 2022 season, Matt accepted the job to become the St. Louis Cardinals' bench coach. He resigned from the post before the season started, deciding he needed to spend more time with his family. MLB players still trek to Oklahoma to hit with Matt, who — if he wants it — could still have a future as an MLB coach or manager. 'If you want to feel bad about where you are as a hitter, go hit with the Holliday family,' said 14-year major leaguer Matt Carpenter, who once rebuilt his swing in Stillwater. Advertisement The Stillwater High Pioneers wear blue and yellow, but in the stands, multiple kids wear Orioles jerseys with Jackson's No. 7 — the same number Matt wore for much of his career and the same number Ethan wears now — on the back. Three years ago, Jackson and Ethan played on the Stillwater High team, just like Josh and Matt did way back when. Now Brady Holliday, Josh's son and Ethan's cousin, hits leadoff and plays second base as a sophomore. 'I graduate next week, and it's hard to believe,' Ethan said after his final high-school game. 'I'm proud of my time in Stillwater, and I'm looking forward to what's next. But Stillwater is my home. It's home forever. Nothing can take that away.' Sitting at a breakfast joint in Stillwater, Tom twists his head left, then right. The boy who once yearned for his father's attention is now the patriarch of a baseball dynasty. Those letters from Ward led to Tom playing two seasons as a catcher at Yavapai College. He finished his college career at Miami, then played one professional season in the Pirates system. There was a job at Miami, then a year at Arizona State. Ward won junior college national titles in '75 and '77, and after that 1977 season, he practically had his pick of DI jobs. Wherever he went, Ward wanted Holliday to be his top assistant. Tom favored UCLA or Cal. But Ward was from a tiny Oklahoma railroad town called Ramona, and he liked the school in Stillwater. 'Oklahoma State?' Tom said. 'Where the hell is that?' With a wife and baby in the car, Tom arrived in Stillwater, 15 miles that feels like an eternity off Interstate 35, and went straight to the baseball field off Knoblock Street. It was called University Park back then, and it was a travesty. Grass grew in the baselines. Weeds, six feet high, covered the infield. There was a massive pile of dirt between second and third. Advertisement Tom found a pay phone. 'Well,' Ward told him, 'get it ready for practice. We got a lot of work to do.' They sifted the dirt, pulled the weeds, bled and sweat under a sweltering summer sun. That first year, they won 40 games. Over the next 19 seasons, Oklahoma State went to the College World Series 11 times. Pete Incaviglia pinged home runs that scraped the sky. Robin Ventura stacked hits like the bricks they used to build the new Allie P. Reynolds Stadium. All the while, two small boys soaked it all in. Josh and Matt Holliday grew up living and breathing Oklahoma State baseball. They chased foul balls, mimicked players' stances, stole cookies out of Ward's desk. OSU players were their heroes. They played on a big stage. Their world felt small. 'There was never a time that baseball wasn't anything other than a passion that we learned to work at and respect,' Josh said. '(Dad) taught us to do that. He prepared us. He pushed us. He toughened us up and made us competitors. He never sugarcoated anything but he made us believe anything was possible.' Josh grew into a quarterback, star baseball player and valedictorian at Stillwater High. Matt went on to become a star quarterback, too. Unlike his father and brother, he was tall and sculpted, taking more after Kathy's side of the family. They all still laugh about the time Matt came home with a C on his report card. Josh, who once tossed his younger brother's Nintendo over the back fence thinking it would help keep him focused, was yelling. 'C is for average. You're not average.' The two nearly came to blows, one of the only times they ever fought. That night, Matt came to his parents' bedroom said, 'I won't get any more C's.' In a recruiting class that featured Michael Vick and Carson Palmer, some services considered Matt the best quarterback recruit in the country. He had offers from all over but committed to play two sports at Oklahoma State. Advertisement When the first round of the MLB draft came, teams shied away, fearing he wouldn't sign. Dave Holliday, Tom's brother, worked for the Rockies back then. Long story short: Colorado drafted Matt in the seventh round. He received an $840,000 signing bonus and a contract clause that would allow him to return to football after three years. Matt chose baseball and never looked back. Tom was Ward's pitching coach and ace recruiter for 19 seasons, until one day in 1996, Ward told his old protege his back hurt and he had seen enough. Tom was soon named head coach, tasked with taming the monster they built. Josh played for his dad at Oklahoma State, then spent two years in the Blue Jays system. More than the grinding existence of a fringe prospect, he wanted the life he watched every day growing up. Teaching, coaching, helping. He came back and worked for Tom as an assistant. While Matt rose up the pro ranks, they lived this baseball life together. Until 2003, when — another long story short — school politics got messy, and Tom Holliday's contract was not renewed. The Cowboys had missed the postseason in three of his final four years. Josh has called it one of the hardest times of his life, the family thrust out of the place where they had invested so much. 'In many ways, looking back, it was a blessing,' Josh said. 'But it didn't feel like one. It felt like something you loved didn't love you back anymore.' Tom went on to be Augie Garrido's pitching coach at Texas. Josh went out on his own coaching odyssey, including stops at Georgia Tech, Arizona State and Vanderbilt. Matt, meanwhile, blossomed into an All-Star outfielder, revered both for his hitting prowess and his savvy leadership. He traveled the big-league circuit with his family. A young Jackson grew up hitting rolled-up straw wrappers with butter knives at the dinner table. He smacked sock balls over the fish tank in Tom and Kathy's living room. He was a sideshow in major-league clubhouses, where Matt's teammates marveled at his innate ability to mimic any swing. Then, one day in 2012, another twist of fate. Tom Holliday got a call from Mike Holder, the AD at Oklahoma State. Holder told Tom he was going to hire a new baseball coach. He wanted Josh, but only with Tom's blessing. Tom gave his approval. Josh brought back the interlocking O and S on the team's caps and restored the team's old-school jerseys. He once said his only hesitation was that he might care about the place too much. Advertisement 'This is my major leagues,' he said. A few years later, after Tom was done coaching at Auburn, he and Kathy loaded the trucks and moved back to Stillwater. 'I was worried about being around,' Tom said. 'But we said, 'To hell with it. We're gonna go, because we're gonna be together.'' At the end of Matt's playing career — which, toward the end, took him to Donald Holliday's beloved Yankees — he, too, moved his family from their home by the ocean in Jupiter, Fla. 'We're coming to Stillwater,' he told his father. 'To visit?' Tom asked. 'No,' Matt said. 'To stay.' Baseball molded this family, scattered them across the country, then brought them all back together. 'In the end,' Josh said, 'you only go out and work so you can come back home and be with your people.' Tom Holliday watches his grandsons less through a sentimental eye and more with the hardened focus of an old coach. But his eyes still get misty when he thinks of his father. What might Donald Holliday think of all this? That one elicits a laugh. 'Probably,' Tom said, 'he would light a cigarette, sit there and say, 'You know, we need to get Jackson traded to the Yankees. Or, don't let Ethan go to anybody but the Yankees.'' Here in Stillwater, the next generation took to the game because it was interlaced with life. Tom threw batting practice to Jackson, took Ethan down in the garage to vent and hit soft toss after a bad day at school. As they grew older, Jackson, Ethan and cousin Brady gathered each morning to take grounders and hit BP. 'Everyone in our family lives in Oklahoma, so being able to go back and go out to their land, be around all my cousins and uncles, it was pretty cool,' Jackson said. Out at Matt Holliday's property, there's a Wiffle Ball field and five No. 7s stuck on orange walls. Matt spent a season on Josh's staff at Oklahoma State. Tom spent summers coaching dozens of draft picks on Cape Cod. Uncle Dave lives about an hour away in Bixby. To this day, Matt, Ethan and Jackson hit and work out at OSU. The kids grew up on home-run derbies and competitions in the cage. Advertisement Matt has another son, Reed, who is not yet in high school. Josh has a daughter, Olivia. Matt's daughter, Gracyn, watches every game, talks baseball on the ride home like the rest of them. 'Man,' Tom says, laughing. 'We really ruined these kids.' Five hours after Ethan Holliday's last high school baseball game, he stood on the concourse at the shining O'Brate Stadium with his father and a handful of teammates, watching Oklahoma State play. Tom was up in the booth broadcasting for ESPN+. 'They have my back no matter what,' Ethan said of his family. 'If I didn't have my circle, I'd be out of whack. They're my people, and I'm really thankful.' Donald Holliday died in 2001 and never met his great-grandchildren. But Josh has memories of visits to the house in Pennsylvania, playing Wiffle Ball and listening to the Pirates on the radio. In this odd little town where everything is painted orange, Tom Holliday's boys recreated their childhood. And maybe without knowing it, they built the kind of life Donald Holliday wanted. (Top photo of Matt, Ethan and Jackson: Daniel Shirey / MLB Photos via Getty Images)
