This is about my dad, Paul Dougherty, so it could be about a lot of things.

It could be about how, after Little League baseball games, he’d tell every player on the field to get a free cone at our family’s ice cream shop up the street. “Tell them to put it on Paul,” he’d say, and a generation of kids grew up calling him Paul the Ice Cream Man. That was so cool.

It could be about how, before my first middle school dance, he pulled me aside and said everyone deserves to have fun. “If no one asks a girl to dance then you should,” he’d say, all the way until my Senior Prom. That was so caring.

It could be about how, right when I started high school, he was diagnosed with tonsil cancer and showed me how to be strong. “I’ll be OK, just take care of your mom,” he’d say, and after months of radiation treatment and chemotherapy he was right. That was so brave.

Instead it’s about him being the genesis of my young sports writing career. About something he’s told me, so many times, that I roll over in my head as words to live and write by.

“If I could go back and do it all again, I’d want to be a sports writer,” he’d say, his voice carrying a wistful tone of what-if. “Looking back, that would be my dream.”

So I’m using my last space in The Daily Orange to make that dream come true. To publish his words in the sports pages of a newspaper. It’s the least I could do after all he’s given me.

Below are his rules to life, which he sent to me in the exact format they appear without knowing I’d be using them in this column.

Life Rules by Paul Dougherty

Do not talk about yourself, let others do it.

Be good to and respect others.

Say I love you to your mate at least once a day.

Say I love you to your kids more.

Read Dr. Seuss now and as an adult.

Always cut your own lawn.

Read to your kids.

Read.

Listen to music, to some really listen.

Don’t wait to talk, listen.

Call your mom.

Have a sense of humor.

Be able to laugh at yourself.

Be a team player.

Don’t quit.

Give a homeless person money, don’t worry about what he spends it on.

Put money in a random expired parking meter.

Play an instrument, even if you are not good at it.

Watch your favorite movie, a lot.

Find the Big and Little Dipper.

Take naps.

When alone, sing.

Do not — do not judge others.

Be a courteous driver.

Slow down on exit ramps.

Be true to your home town teams.

Have a catch, whenever you get the chance.

Make sure you are home for Christmas.

Learn the rules of baseball.

Never stop learning.

See the Grand Canyon.

Don’t litter.

Eat ice cream.

Play card and board games.

Own a convertible, at least once.

Listen to older people, they’ve been there.

If you get the chance to be nice, take it.

Dance.

Across the last four years, I’ve often found myself wondering what great sports writing looks like. Sounds like. Feels like. I haven’t quite figured it out, and never fully will. But I do think great sports writing — the stuff that hits in such a way that you have to take a deep breath before turning each page — is empathetic, reflective of a reader’s life and capable of making the little things feel not so little at all.

I think great sports writing looks, sounds and feels a lot like Paul Dougherty’s Life Rules. So thanks dad, for showing me that the writer I want to be is the one you would have been.

Let’s go see the Grand Canyon someday soon.

Jesse Dougherty was a senior staff writer at The Daily Orange where his column will no longer appear. He can be reached at jcdoug01@syr.edu or on Twitter at @dougherty_jesse.

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Published on May 3, 2016 at 12:03 am