I have 15 minutes…
So I’m going to say what’s up real quick!
I’m here to say hello and thanks to all the folks who helped make me better over this past year. I haven’t written in my voice here at all this month (although I did release my entire 2015 Drew League archive), and a quick look at my work over the past year shows where my head was for the most part:
Hoops this, football that.
That’s not all bad, but I guess it’s something when I didn’t lace a post here without sports after September 2014. I just don’t know what. I had a crazy year, and part of what made it crazy was the fact that I kept it moving. No taking time out here to look back and enjoy much, but also no time to sit here and blow off some steam on the keys. There wasn’t a lot of emotion involved in my 2014-2015.
The biggest reason for that: this was my first year with a master’s degree.
I went into this year under the assumption that it was my last in Los Angeles. After all, I came out here with a five-year plan in 2010. Even this website was something I kicked off in 2010, with the understanding that I was going to have a very different perspective on things by the middle of the decade.
I started the year as a paid intern at Marketplace. It was an exciting opportunity – one that was paired with another great opportunity, joining Fox Sports (1) as a freelance assignment desk assistant. Two part time jobs, which equaled one full-time job. Neither was a perfect fit for my increasingly hard to define/contain skill set. But I wasn’t worried about that.
By the end of November, I had worked with Comcast SportsNet Chicago for a day – the same day the NFL Network called me about an opening in their research department. I didn’t want to leave Marketplace early, and I was on Fox’s schedule until New Year’s Day. But I was fortunate that the NFL Network wanted to pick me up. Honestly, it was a no-brainer. I have been preparing to work with statistics and history in sports since I was a preteen. I didn’t care about the fact that I was only assured of being there for two months – I caught a break in December.
I’m glad that I did well enough from December through March that I was invited to return to the research department for the 2015 season. From March to August, I freelanced. i was able to spend more time with ClipperBlog, and I learned a lot about covering a team, something I didn’t do regularly at California PA or USC (aside from Dorsey football).
I got to travel a lot. Some of my trips were planned out, like to Denver and to see my folks in Philadelphia, Atlantic City, and New York. Other trips, like my one-day excursion to Tijuana, were just because.
I also got to go to Las Vegas to cover the NBA Summer League, though covering the Drew League is way, way better. I went back to NABJ this month, this time to Minnesota. I saw Prince, so that alone made the trip worth it.
When I got back home from Minnesota, I thought about how that will be my last trip for awhile. I’m going to be in Los Angeles more than five years. Every year from 2010 to 2015 has been filled with a lot of uncertainty. The most stable situation I was in was my first year in grad school, and I wound up in the ER by the end of that year. This is unchartered territory. I still don’t know what I am supposed to be doing. I’ll address 2015-2016 at a later date.
For now, I’m happy to be at the end of the rope of the 2014-2015 season. I feel blessed by the people I got to spend it with. For the first time ever in Los Angeles, I’m looking forward to building something.
-1SKILLZ