In 2006, I faced a cold reality that all but the most gifted athletes begrudgingly embrace. My athletic career was not going to pay the bills. Already two years deep at Michigan State University, halfway to a journalism degree that many people tried to talk me out of — as I was warned, journalism doesn’t often pay the bills, either — I took a risk.

I put school on hold, ended a 12-year swimming career that had been responsible for plucking me from a small Connecticut town to MSU and headed to Washington DC. The internship, my first in print, was through the National Journalism Center. I got a roommate, a small place where I could jog by Capitol Hill and — as the only intern not interested in political reporting — a gig working for a weekly paper in the suburb of Falls Church, Va.

In suburbia, I’d often spend my lunch hour reading the Washington Post’s sports section and dissecting the sentences used. When I saw a lede I really liked, I’d write it down, which is something I started years ago with volumes of The Best American Sports Writing. It amazed me how easy some journalists could make it look.

The Nationals were still new to D.C. at the time, but there was an air of excitement. Shiny new banners hung in bars and their gear was starting to infiltrate the city, a growing group eager to embrace D.C. baseball.

Twelve years later and I get to be a part of that excitement, as a newly-minted staff writer for The Athletic D.C., covering the Nationals.

Life has a funny way of working out. Had I not taken that semester in D.C., and been met with bleak job prospects as a December 2007 graduate, I wouldn’t have accepted the MLB.com internship. It was, again, another risk. And one I was warned against as friends and even mentors I trusted implored me to instead accept the job I was offered at a small newspaper.

Internships end. There’s more security in a job. And benefits, they said. Three years later that paper went under and I was starting my first year on the Orioles’ beat, having already spent a year in New York for MLB.com and as an associate reporter for Tampa Bay’s magical ’08 run.

Leaving MLB.com was one of the toughest decisions I’ve ever made. It was my first real job. I buried my father in 2015 with one of my business cards, which he proudly carried in his wallet from the first day I joined the Orioles beat in ’10. But if there’s one thing he taught my three sisters and me, it was to not live a safe life. Take risks. Follow your heart.

My latest risk brings me here: to the ad-free, unfettered pages of The Athletic. Here I’ll be free of the shackles of baseball game coverage and ready to dive into deeper meanings, analysis and stories that are often pushed aside in the bustle of the beat.

My aim is to complement the already-excellent coverage of the Nationals and partake in The Athletic’s exciting new push into video. Who knows? You may even read my byline on another D.C. sports team. (Though Bryce Harper should keep me plenty busy this winter.)

Truthfully, I’ve spent the past week staring at my computer, wondering what to say to a D.C. fanbase that doesn’t know me and is wary of an outsider who has spent the past decade immersed in that city across the beltway. (At least it’s not New York or Philadelphia? )

Ultimately, I kept going back to this: Sports fans deserve great writing and storytelling. I believe in what The Athletic is doing. I believe in this risk. And I hope you will, too.

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(Top photo by Geoff Burke/USA TODAY Sports)