After four years ashore at the University of Pittsburgh, it’s time to set sail. As much as I want to scuttle the ship and stay in South Oakland forever, I know everyone’s time to leave comes eventually.
I still remember my arrival four years ago. After 45 minutes of running aground, my roommate and I discovered a party in Semple Lot. Speaking for myself, it couldn’t have felt more foreign. The locals knew all the words and movements to Sweet Caroline while I wasn’t totally sure I was even on Pitt’s campus.
During my freshman year, I never found a place to settle down. I lived in Sutherland Hall and spent much of my time at Carlow University, searching for a community to call home. I began to think the new world I had just reached wasn’t everything my high school self had imagined it would be.
Then, at the start of my sophomore year, Jack Troy, a family friend and former staff writer for the news desk, told me the sports desk was hiring. Having just watched the “History of the Seattle Mariners” for the fourth time, sports writing was the creative outlet I wanted to dive into.
After three years of experience, I’ve learned that writing about sports is not hard. When former sports editors Jermaine Sykes and Brian Sherry first brought me to The Pitt News, I made a phone call to legendary Pittsburgh sports writer Jim O’Brien for some tips. He told me, “Sports writing is not war reporting.” What happens in there — the field, court, track, pool or green — is not nearly as important as what’s going on out here.
However, the unspoken agreement between sports and all parties involved is that everything is just as serious. As a sports writer, I am certainly bound by those terms. The fulfillment I get out of holding up my end of the deal — treating sports as a pillar that holds up our world — is what’s driven me to write 82-and-counting stories for The Pitt News and many more through other bylines. But that’s not the only reason why I continue to write.
Recently, in a job interview, I was told by a professional journalist that I am the “least qualified candidate they have ever talked to.” I wasn’t a journalist, I’ve never covered anything, and I should just stop doing whatever I’ve been doing. That’s not something anyone wants to hear in an interview, but it’s what I needed to hear, even if the critiques of my career weren’t entirely true.
I was reminded why I started writing in the first place — what I told Jermaine and Brian in my interview to join the sports desk. I just want to tell the stories of interesting people that no one has told before. Thankfully, I was given the green light by the sports editors before me, Aidan Kasner and Matthew Scabilloni, to settle down in a permanent home on the sports desk and take on difficult assignments I wasn’t sure I could do until I did.
I’ll never forget talking to Bill Hillgrove in his first public interview since the day he retired from the Pittsburgh Steelers, or Sam Clancy before his jersey went into the rafters of the Pete, or E.J. Borghetti in his last year of over two decades of service to Pitt Athletics as the chief spokesperson.
After publishing the latter, I fully understood that while writing about sports is easy, telling a person’s story is hard. Understanding all of these people around me is likely the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I spent over 30 hours discovering the world of handball and Pitt’s place in it, and I still don’t think I dove into as much detail as I could have.
When I started at The Pitt News, I’d tell people I was a “striving people person.” I wanted a strong ability to communicate with people, but didn’t always have the confidence to make it happen. After dozens of interviews, coffee chats with people much wiser than I and telling the stories of people more interesting than I can ever convey through writing, I’m happy to say I’ve graduated to an actual people person.
As I pack the life I’ve built and prepare to say goodbye to South Oakland and its inhabitants, I get to reflect on the web of relationships I’m lucky enough to have with people whose life stories I’ll remain curious to hear.
Thank you to my family for reading every article I send their way, to The Pitt News professional staff for the unwavering faith they had in me to do my best, to Abby Lipold, Grace Longworth and the entire copy desk for making my job so much easier, to the editorial staff for making the long production nights enjoyable and to the sports desk for making me feel at home.
My compass is uncalibrated. I’m unsure of where the wind will take me or how to use the stars as a guide. But just like how I felt with my arrival at Pitt four years ago, there is an exciting nerve to setting sail into the great beyond.
