Upon meeting me when I took over as The Herald Bulletin’s sports editor one year ago Wednesday, a colleague introduced himself, saying, “Welcome to The Herald Bulletin, where you will never again do anything right.”

Some might agree with that assessment of our work during the last year. I hope not. I don’t.

Growing up in nearby Yorktown, I would occasionally read The Anderson Herald or the Anderson Daily Bulletin, whichever copy my grandparents had lying around their westside house. By the time I was in high school, the papers had merged. I would sometimes buy a single copy, especially if my cross country or track team had competed against an area school.

I still have relatives who live in town — two uncles, an aunt and a couple of cousins, one of whom recently took us to task for misspelling her boyfriend’s name. Sorry about that, Megan ... or is it Meghan?

One year into the job, having witnessed Madison County athletics up close, has left me with a deeper appreciation for the sports community here, and the opportunities, both participatory and spectator, that we have.

There’s Anderson Speedway, where track president Rick Dawson works tirelessly to provide quality entertainment for the area’s substantial auto racing fan base.

There’s Hoosier Park, with the casino dynamic added this year, but the horse racing still drawing people from a large area that extends well beyond county lines.

There’s Anderson University, which provides college athletics at its purest form. With no athletic scholarships, student-athletes play for the love of the game, moreso than their athletic scholarship-receiving brethren at the non-NCAA Division III levels.

There are the 11 high school athletic programs, each of which have some tradition or another of which they should be proud.

There’s the Nick Muller Memorial Baseball tournament. I’m told that one former THB sports reporter, upon taking a new job in Florida, vowed to plan his vacations around the tourney.

There are the various community foundations and groups that support local athletics, from the Muller people to the Madison County Community Foundation, which sponsored the inaugural Johnny Wilson Award scholarship, to the Red Haven Award, and several others.

Finally, there’s our sports department, from full-timers Rick Teverbaugh, Richard Torres and Quintin Harlan, to correspondents John Millikan, Justin Albers, Justin Bates, Rick Bramwell and Julie Cline.

There’s also you. I’ve met hundreds of you, and talked on the phone or through e-mail with hundreds more. Some of you like what we’re doing; some don’t. I encourage each of you to continue providing feedback, positive and negative, so we can provide a product relevant to your lives. Thanks for reading. Hopefully, my colleague’s introduction almost a year ago will be even less relevant a year from now.

Adam Wire is The Herald Bulletin’s sports editor. He can be reached at (765) 648-4288 or at adam.wire@heraldbulletin.com.