Not the Kevin Wilson you're looking for

“Hi Kevin Wilson, my name is Kevin Wilson. I believe I’ve been getting your email.”

About a year ago I made that phone call. About two years ago I told you a portion of the story that would eventually lead to that phone call. It started as a story of frustration and mistaken identity, and has turned into a teachable moment on how to handle a mistake you didn’t make.

Sometime two Novembers ago, I got an email from a guy named Bob designing helmet decals. He wanted to float them by me, or at least he wanted to let some other Kevin Wilson know because my personal email includes my first and last name with some numbers.

I told Bob I liked the decals, but he was clearly looking for some other Kevin Wilson.

The emails didn’t stop with Bob. Every time I got an email about practice times, or jersey orders, or media inquiries about the upcoming season, I’d respond and tell these Boston-area hockey people I wasn’t the Kevin Wilson they were looking for and to please take my name off of their email lists.

The replies never went over the line, because these were nice people who just made a mistake. But it’s fair to say I got less polite and more frustrated with each reply. Everybody apologized, but nobody fixed the problem.

Fortunately, a coach apologized and went the extra step to explain the mistake. Some small coaches directory is distributed annually in the Boston area. This coach took a picture of the listing for Somerville coach Kevin Wilson, with his phone number and my email address.

At that point, I realized every time I got an email Coach Wilson didn’t, and every time I got frustrated Coach Wilson was told, “I sent you an email, and you never responded.” It was also a stark reminder that plenty of people have had frustrating days due to small mistakes I’ve made in this job. The gods of print production chose me to fix this mistake.

I left the above phone call, and after a few rounds of voicemail tag the Kevin Wilsons finally spoke. His email address was basically my email address with the word “hockey” thrown in the middle.

The mistake has been fixed in more recent directories, but I still get an email about Somerville hockey from time to time. Now I send two emails each time. The first one is a forward to Coach Wilson. The second replies to the original sender with a friendly hello, followed by, “You’ve reached me due to a mistake in a 2017 coaches directory. I am Kevin Wilson, a newspaper editor in Clovis, N.M. Somerville coach Kevin Wilson can be reached at (my email address plus “hockey”). I have forwarded your correspondence to Coach Wilson. Please update your address books. Have a great season.” That’s saved under my keyboard shortcuts as “kwhockey.”

I would never go to Boston specifically for it, but maybe someday I’ll be in the neighborhood and swing by to catch up with Coach Wilson. Maybe for a night, head coach Kevin Wilson could be joined by honorary assistant coach Kevin Wilson. I could give a pep talk to the kids about moving on from a mistake, whether you or one of your teammates made it.

I just hope they’ll let me drive the Zamboni.

Kevin Wilson is editor of the Eastern New Mexico News. He can be contacted at 575-763-3431, ext. 320, or by email:

[email protected]