I was pissed off, sitting in traffic.

It was hot. The AC didn’t work all that great in the old beater van, but that was my vessel, my means of employment back then — now, exactly a decade ago. Graduating at the height of the recession wasn’t ideal, and those far-away dreams of bursting my way into the professional world of sports writing so quickly turned into me, back home in Northern California, transporting antiques around the Bay Area, questioning just about everything.

Just a few months before all those days stuck in gridlock, I was in New Orleans, on the field inside the Superdome, brushing red and white confetti off my shoulders, and wondering: how did Utah pull off one of the greatest upsets in college football bowl history?

My first real beat? Utah football as a student reporter. The Utes went 13-0 that year. I didn’t even learn how to write a losing gamer on deadline. So there I was, asking Kyle Whittingham, Gary Andersen, Brian Johnson and countless others what it felt like to beat Nick Saban and Alabama in the Sugar Bowl.

A decade later, after finding a way to ditch the van life, of working the oddest of jobs, of wondering if I’d ever get a real shot one day, I’m back in this familiar saddle.

It’s absurd, right?

Absurdly cool.

This next step, this next phase of my professional life, 10 years after being told I was overqualified to work at an Apple Store and later resorting to working a couple nights a week at a frozen yogurt store, I found myself in a hotel across the street from Wrigley Field in sun-splashed Chicago, learning the ins and outs of this new venture from some of the preeminent writers and editors around. It’s funny how things kinda, sorta just work out, right?

They have for me. So back to the change.

I’ve joined The Athletic. After nearly seven years at The Salt Lake Tribune, a place that raised me and allowed me to chase and write the kind of stories that I always dreamt of, I’m part of something different. I will be covering Utah football and other feature and enterprise stories around the state, as always doing my best to bring forth the sort of stories that you want to keep coming back to.

My assumption is that most in the Utah sports media market know who I am. I am the guy who people confuse for Ricky Rubio. But I haven’t relocated to Phoenix. I’m still very much in Salt Lake, also frustrated by the lack of bike lanes around Sugar House and constant road construction. What my new life will be now is about devoting everything to telling stories in a more unique manner than ever, about finding various ways to connect with you all, to prove to you that this is the place to be. I subscribed years ago because so often I came across links to stories that spoke to me, enticed me and made me want to drop everything that I was doing in order to see what followed the tease on Twitter.



It’ll be about me asking Kyle Whittingham about why he has to go to Maui for a couple of weeks every summer before the onslaught of Pac-12 Media Days and later fall camp.



It’ll be about seated 1-on-1 with Zack Moss, a darkhorse Heisman Candidate, wondering why he chose to leave South Florida to be a star beneath the Wasatch Mountains and why he still has aspirations to break every rushing record at his school.

These are stories I’ve sought to write in the past — and I’ve done them. But The Athletic already has such a sturdy reputation that my joining the ranks only furthers aspirations to do the best work there is out there. Like you all, I’m intrigued to see Andy Ludwig’s assimilation back in Salt Lake, to see how he builds his offense around Moss, Tyler Huntley and a Utah team that enters this season as a Top-25 program with perhaps the highest expectations since joining the Pac-12.

I’ll be there to try and answer questions. Feel free to introduce yourselves. Email me whenever. If you want to make fun of my hair, I won’t be offended. Above all else, I’ll be there to try and provide you with the stories that first attracted me to The Athletic, the ones where you click, read and become immersed.



I’ve been drenched on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro and frozen in the mountains of South Korea covering Olympics, assignments most reporters will never get to experience. But as I’ve told my new colleagues, when The Athletic comes calling, you must listen.



I did.

So here we go.

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(Photo: Matthew Pearce/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)