The Traveling Coach   

After coaching reporters at the Milwaukee Journal for the past 11 years, Paul Salsini is hitting the road.

Salsini says he's not looking forward to leaving after 36 years with the paper, but he always wanted to be a visiting writing coach at other newspapers. The early retirement offer he received from the recently merged Milwaukee Journal Sentinel just gives him the chance to turn his dream into a career that much sooner.

As a result of the merger, 234 employees company-wide at the paper have signed up to receive buyouts, while about 20 newsroom employees have been laid off.

Salsini, 59, has held several positions at the Journal, including a 14-year stint as state editor. But it was his teaching experience at Marquette University for 25 years that eventually landed him the title of writing coach, a job he soon realized was his calling.

A coaches conference at the Poynter Institute 10 years ago led Salsini and Lucille DeView , a writing coach at the Orange County Register , to start "The Coaches' Corner," a quarterly newsletter. Conceived in a bar, it now has more than 200 subscribers.

Salsini's greatest satisfaction in coaching reporters is watching them gain confidence in their writing. "Often the best writers are the most insecure," he says. "I find that what writers want most is just someone to listen to them."

But Salsini won't claim any credit for all the writers he's helped through that inevitable block, or for all the stories that editors liked so much better after his coaching sessions.

"My job is to make you look good to your editor, and therefore to your readers as well," says Salsini. "I just try to be anonymous and make you shine."

Salsini says such modesty is common among his fellow coaches. "We're all laid back," he says. "If there is a coaching personality, it's not Vince Lombardi."