I’ll never forget the feeling as my internship coordinator sat over my shoulder and gave me instructions.
Type your name, then write “USA TODAY” after it. Don’t forget to make USA Today all caps.
That first byline was more than 12 years ago now – and it’s become a part of my identity in so many ways since. Growing up in rural America, in a small Illinois town of 500 people, writing for a national news outlet that reached millions of people always felt so unbelievably big time.
Today, I’m saying goodbye to the all-caps big time of the nation’s newspaper, stepping away from a field in journalism that I’ll always have a deep love for. It’s a career path that started two decades ago when I was 14 years old, when I created custom-made “Baller” magazines off a blotchy Microsoft printer, before pivoting into sports editing at Illinois State’s student newspaper and covering high school football games for $25 a game.
It’s not lost on me for a second how blessed I’ve been to live out a childhood dream, and the tattoos that both journalism and USA TODAY have left on my heart will stay with me forever.
Sitting courtside at the Final Four this past April, with Jay Bilas to my left and Grant Hill on my right, I had this feeling it’d be my last time covering March Madness. Taking everything in, I was struck with the same surreal feeling I had at my first Final Four in 2014 or first NBA draft in 2013 and countless times throughout this writing career. Then on my last trip to USAT’s headquarters in Tysons Corner, Virginia, I was hit with this sense of déjà vu from when I used to drive to the HQ in awe every day of my internship. Looking back at the glass fortress for one last time this past summer, I had this conversation with my inner child, just thinking, “damn, dude, we made it. We got to do this for a living.”
I’ll give a fraction of that credit to passionate hard work. But I can’t help but feel overwhelmed with all the people who lifted me up and truly believed in me along the way to change my life, from my direct editors Tim, Joe, Jimmy, Mike and Ashley to my big bosses Tom, Mary, Peter, David and Rox. There are countless colleagues I’ve reach out to this week who I felt beyond privileged to work alongside because they’re truly the best in the business. I always felt like the B squad to their A squad, so taking a permanent seat on the bench will only make me more of a fan to your guys’ epic journalism.
More than anything, though, USA TODAY has given me a feeling of family. And that’s how I’ll remember this chapter in my life best. The company and my colleagues over the years have given me an emotional nest, a sense of identity to grow as both a journalist and a man. USA TODAY afforded me with financial stability, gave me the opportunity to live in three cities (DC, LA and Chi) and promoted my welfare along the way.
That’s probably why goodbye feels awkward today. And thank you feels more accurate.
There’s a bittersweet tie-in to this career shift that comes next. I’ll be fully jumping into a career my father used to love in mental health therapy, while saying goodbye to the one where he was a top cheerleader for my success here. He died one month into my start with the sports department at USA TODAY (and I’ll never forget how supportive the company was for me during that time). Getting to emotionally lean on that USA TODAY byline, particularly when writing about college basketball, helped me gradually cope with his loss every single March Madness since 2012 – as well as many more life struggles and hurdles along the way. In a way, I felt his love shining down on me as I wrote about Cinderellas, the NCAA Tournament bubble and beloved bracket-busters. That tireless “passion” my editors credited me with deep down came from a son trying to negotiate his best friend not being here.
And yet, it’s the stories outside of college hoops that I was privileged to write over the years that are truly making me swim in gratefulness now. When I got into the field, I thought covering the NBA Finals, Olympics and Super Bowls would designate my success. Little did I know I’d find a calling reporting on the LGBTQ movement in sports, that I’d interview Michael Phelps for a package on mental health, enter maximum security prisons to talk to inmates about fantasy football, or have 1A front-page stories about topics that drift far outside the typical sports arenas.
All these outside-the-box human interest stories make sense now – pointing to my heart’s compass of making a difference, albeit on more of the macro level. I’ll never forget the meaning behind college basketball coach Chris Burns or pro baseball player Bryan Ruby coming out as gay in our stories — how readers would email us saying these stories were saving lives.
When I look back on this time in my life, I’ll be proud to tell my future kids one day of my small part in changing hearts and pushing against homophobia and transphobia. It’s that unyielding fight to tell the truth about their experiences that I’ll deeply miss about journalism – and channeling that advocacy for people hiding and hurting as a byproduct to doing truth-telling journalism. These are the stories I’m proud to talk to my Mom about and ones I wish my Dad could have read. But in a way, I know my parents’ influences played a part in me being drawn to a world bigger than the safe haven I found in sports.
Six years ago, I actually had a similar blog post saved and ready to post. I was poised to throw in the towel on journalism because things just weren’t the same without my No. 1 fan reading my stories anymore. But the company allowed me to take a five-week mission trip to Kenya, to battle through bouts of depression and come out on the other side, and then to get my master’s at Northwestern in psychology while becoming an ideal springboard to vault me to a true life purpose in helping people.
At USA TODAY I’ve done a variety of different jobs over 12 years, from posting stories in an overnight shift at 23 years old to writing news stories about school shootings and COVID at 33 years old. But I have a hard time thinking of USA TODAY as a job or the journalism I did there as a career. It makes more sense for me to reflect on USA TODAY as a home, and a damn good one that helped shape me into the man I am today. And much like our homes growing up, we move on from them, but we take a piece of them with us. That’s what I’ll do with this home.
Cheers, USA TODAY. All caps for one last time.