About Chris Hobbs (updated)

Catawba County native longest-serving  active

writer in state still focused on high schools

 

Chris Hobbs — whose family moved from Mooresville to Catawba County in 1964 — is an award-winning sports journalist best known for his coverage of high school athletics, primarily focused in Western North Carolina.

He is marking his 5oth consecutive year of work in print or online media.

Hobbs first began following prep sports while in the seventh grade (so another six years around before going into journalism/print media in the 1976-77 school year).

Hobbs, 67, is the longest-tenured currently active sports writer (full-time) in the state and has for many years been the dean of those writers working in Western N.C.

He and his wife, Myra, are soon moving the headquarters for our website to Conover, as Hobbs returns to Catawba County for the first time since 1982.

Hobbs has worked for five newspapers – The Hickory Daily Record (twice), The Lenoir News-Topic, The Gaston Gazette, The Charlotte Observer and The Salisbury Post – in a newspaper career spanning nearly 42 years. He’s written and reported on high school sports in North Carolina in six different decades (70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s, 2010s and 2020s), and continues that.

He was a staff sportswriter at The Record (five years) and The Charlotte Observer (just shy of 14 years), assistant sports editor at the then-Gastonia Gazette and Sports Editor at the News-Topic (at age 20) and The Salisbury Post ‘s sports editor before returning to The Record as sports editor in 1997.

Hobbs was sports editor in Hickory for just shy of 20 years , then an assistant editor who also continued to supervise the sports department. He was the newspaper’s editor for three months before being a “reduction in force” in February 2017.

He launched HobbsDailyReport.com on April 1, 2017 and the site has attracted more than 2 million page views since launching.

Hobbs’ career in sports includes coverage of NASCAR racing, college basketball (Davidson beat writer for five seasons), a Super Bowl, an NCAA Final Four, NFL and Arena Football League games, pro golf,  multiple NCAA basketball and football games and ACC basketball tournaments, major league and minor league baseball and feature writing on subjects such as NASCAR champion Dale Jarrett for national magazines.

Hobbs also developed a state Top 100 recruiting football list for many years for several national publications and was a North Carolina contact for high schools for — among other publications — USA Today and many high school-related national internet sites for many years.

He is one of the few national journalists listed for his contributions to the National High School Record Book, and several of his innovative approaches to covering high schools — developing career coaching records for coaches among them — have become the norm among North Carolina media since he began that in the mid-1980s.

A stickler for accuracy and information that provides context for sports accomplishments, Hobbs has some of the most extensive record-keeping for high schools in the Piedmont North Carolina that includes more than 200 bound notebooks in his home office that chronicle the history of many high schools in the region (up to complete football history and scores, etc., on many schools) for the past 49 years.

During his career, Hobbs has received these local and state honors:

• The North Carolina High School Athletic Association (NCHSAA) Media Person of the Year in 1992.
• Media representative who contributed the most to Region 6 in 1996, an award annually presented by the NCHSAA, the N.C. Athletic Directors Association (NCADA) and the N.C. Coaches Association (NCCA).
• A Distinguished Service Award from the NCHSAA in 1999 for his contributions to high school athletics statewide.
• Media Person of the Year from The N.C. Baseball Coaches Association (NCBCA).
• First place for sports columns for newspapers with circulations of 15,000-34,999 by the North Carolina Press Association (NCPA) in 2002.
• By the NCPA for producing one of the state’s top three sports sections (same circulation category) eight times over an 11-year period, including a No. 1 in the state for papers of that size in 2005.

Hobbs’ biggest supporter and right-hand person is his wife, Myra. Besides providing direction and inspiration for what HobbsDailyReport.com does, she takes photos, videos and helps Chris with the work and all the decisions that come with operating a website/business.

Chris and Myra have homes in Denver, N.C., Newton, Conover and in San Pablo City, Myra’s hometown in  the Philippines.

Hobbs works primarily from home after spending two years with his mom in Newton to provide health care for her after his brothers, David and Randy, passed away.

Chris’ mom, Betty, died at age 92 in Oct. 2023.

Our small family includes our newest editions  (female kittens Blackie, Teddie and Kobie). We miss their mom, Kattie and their sister Runt (they simply disappeared when we were out of town), as did our black cat Sweetie and our dog Sneaky

We have purchased a new home with a fenced in backyard to give our babies plenty of room to roam.

We also have many family members — including Myra’s father and siblings, two nieces  and a 6-month-old nephew — in the Philippines, and we are pleased to update that we have reached one of our goals. In March of 2023, we bought and renovated/modernized a house in Myra’s hometown. Now we can visit family there for several months each year.

We grieve for the loss of Myra’s mom, who passed on Easter Sunday of 2021 after many years of battling diabetes, and our beloved Aunt Nurse. Aunt Nurse is Myra’s aunt who helped others as a nurse and was the anchor for us there in San Pablo City while we went through the K1 visa process.

We miss mom and Aunt Nurse and pray for everyone’s family who loses a loved one. We have also lost, since late 2018, both of Chris’ brothers (Randy and David).

Chris has dedicated his work with HobbsDailyReport.com to the loving memory of both Moms, his 2 brothers and a sister on Myra’s side of the family.

Life throws all of us a lot of curves… so if you have read this far please include us in your prayers and thanks again for your interest in HobbsDailyReport.com.

You can contact Chris, editor and content coordinator for the website, at chobbs001@att.net