How Do You Impact Your Team?
My goal is always to humanize every player, every coach and every front office member I cover. We see them on the field, we see the dazzling highlights they put up, but what’s behind that? Their stories matter. Who they are as people matters. I love X's and O's and the analysis of it, but I really love people, and I think we do our audiences and those we cover a disservice when we don’t focus on the human element of the sport. Few of us can relate to catching a game-winning touchdown or notching a game-clinching sack or interception. But we’ve all experienced successes and failures in our lives. For every victory, there are moments of doubt and uncertainty, heartbreak, hardship and tragedy. I think that stuff really resonates with people. My favorite stories to write have had little to do with football—Devin White losing his brother Jae Jae and dedicating his life to honoring him; Josh Robinson and his family’s journey towards adoption; Justin Watson’s special bond with his brother Tommy, who has cerebral palsy; William Gholston repaying the store clerk who once [helped him] when he ran out of gas and didn’t even have a bed to sleep in at night. And while Vincent Jackson’s death last month was very difficult for me to write about, as I covered Vincent his whole time here in Tampa, it was so important that people knew how he LIVED.