Paul Wieland: Class of '59

“Write if you get work, or hang from your thumbs.”

           

Paul Wieland

Class of ’59

St. Bonaventure University tends to have a special hold on the university’s alumni base. This statement especially holds true to Paul Wieland who graduated from the university in 1959 and is now a faculty member in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

Paul knew that he wanted to be a journalist ever since he was a kid. The students at Bishop Timon High School, where Paul attended, would make trips to attend Press Day at St. Bonaventure University, which was one of the biggest days of the year for the journalism department. Famous authors, journalists, and news figures would attend this event and Paul would always find himself being sucked into the excitement of it all. When it came time to apply for colleges, St. Bonaventure University’s School of Journalism was where Paul wanted to enroll. In the fall of 1955, he started his first semester at the university.

“One of the main reasons I chose this university was because the chairman of the journalism department at the time, Russell Jandoli, was someone whom I looked up to very much. He believed in ethical journalism and that is a belief that I still stand by today.”

One of Paul’s most memorable moments as an undergraduate was the hazing he experienced as a freshman.

“It was annoying at the time because the upper classmen would make us wear these brown beanies with a sign indicating our graduating year and force us to do ridiculous things. However, it made me count on the people I had just met, who would become good friends of mine, and really helped me feel like I was becoming a part of the Bonaventure community.”

After Paul graduated in 1959 with a degree in journalism and a minor in history, he started his career as a news reporter for the Buffalo Courier-Express. He also had a side job at a weekly suburban paper in Buffalo and taught English for a year at his former high school.

During the first nine years after college, Paul won a total of 20 awards for journalism. Later, Paul decided to leave the Buffalo Evening News because of a conflict with the managing editor, and decided to pursue other career paths.

“I found out later that the managing editor with whom I was having problems dropped dead of a heart attack at his desk three months after I left. It amazes me how different my career path would have been if I had waited out those three months. My philosophy has always been to work for people whom I respect. If there is no respect within the workplace, I am not interested and I am the first to leave.”

            After leaving, Paul received a job with General Motors in the company’s public relations department. Paul was soon offered a big promotion as the public relations director for  the Overseas Divisions in the headquarters of General Motors in New York City. However, Paul did not feel that this job was the right fit for him, so he left a year later.

“It was a good experience. I was able to be a part of the glamour of a job in the city and what General Motors had to offer its more senior employees. It just wasn’t the job for me.”

Soon after, Paul received a call from a friend asking him to be the director of public relations for a new hockey team called the Sabres. Since Paul had a long history of playing hockey, he jumped on the opportunity and worked as their director of public relations for 25 years. During this time, he also experimented with other jobs and started his own sports film company that made features for NBC sports and highlights for teams. Paul also worked for the Niagara Frontier Sports Network which covered all of the television sporting events in Western NY and in public relations at a private ad agency for the Sabres new arena.

 “One of the Knox brothers (the original owners of the Sabres) had been diagnosed with cancer and I knew that they were planning on selling the team so I decided to leave and work on other projects and jobs.”

After the Sabres, Paul worked for a public television operation in Massachusetts for six years, was in the process of writing two books and held a job at ESPN. During this time, he received a call from Lee Coppola, who had been a friend of Paul’s for years. Lee was the Dean of the School of Journalism at St. Bonaventure and he asked Paul if he was interested in a job in the department. He decided to take his friend up on the offer. Paul started teaching his first journalism class at his alma mater in 2002 and has been a member of the Bonaventure faculty ever since.

“I was still working for ESPN during my first year of teaching. I soon realized that I was juggling a lot between traveling to sporting events for ESPN and needing to be in the classroom to teach. I suffered a heart attack and knew that I needed to slow down. So I decided to stick with teaching and leave ESPN.”

Looking back on his years of being a professor, Paul says that his favorite memories always have to do with his students.

“I feel that I can relate to my students because I was also a Bonnie. My students have made me feel fuller and allowed me to live out the youthful spirit that I always had.”

If Paul had to pick one particular favorite memory as a professor, he says it was when a television sports production truck was donated to the university. He was happy that sports production had come back into his life.

“It made me feel good because I am now able to teach people the thing I loved most in my career.”

Along with teaching, Paul is in the process of writing a novel and enjoying time with his wife, children, and dog.