I was 4 years old the first time I went to the Orange Bowl.

The year was 1982.

My father, a Cuban immigrant, wanted me to fall in love with football the same way he did as a teenager, sitting in the same building where he and his cousin had season tickets to watch Larry Csonka, Jim Kiick, Mercury Morris and a No-Name Defense complete the NFL’s first and only perfect season.

So what could a preschooler possibly remember about his first football game on a sweltering September Saturday perched atop the upper deck in the West End Zone? Two things.

First, my father, unimpressed by Miami Hurricanes football, unsuccessfully tried to convince me at halftime the game was over (‘But why isn’t everybody leaving Dad?’ he remembers me asking).

Lastly, the view of Miami’s emerging downtown skyline left a lasting impression.

I knew it even then: I had fallen in love with my hometown.

As I got older, I pleaded with my mother to buy me any Dolphins or Hurricanes T-shirt I could find. There wasn’t a football game I could miss. And I began reading the Miami Herald sports section every morning so I could keep up with what Edwin Pope, Bob Rubin and Gary Long had to say. Then, as time passed, it was Dan Le Batard’s columns.

By the time I was a senior in high school and sports editor of The Braddock Times, I was working on the Herald’s sports desk as a clerk, answering phone calls, compiling statistics and staying in the office as late as 3 a.m. on Friday nights to help put out Sunday’s early edition.

In the 23 years since, I’ve seen and covered just about every big moment in South Florida sports while sitting next to some of those writers I read as a kid, soaking up their thoughts and wisdom.

As the Herald’s high school beat reporter, I was the first South Florida journalist to interview O.J. Simpson and his kids after they moved here from California. I sat down with former Hurricanes linebacker Willie Williams to write his eye-opening recruiting diaries. I was with Sean Taylor at his draft party and then outside his hospital room the day he was shot and killed.

In between, I covered FIU’s first football season; the Frank Haith years at UM (though I’m not taking any credit, I told Jimmy Graham he needed to give football a shot when he was still playing hoops); the Larry Coker, Randy Shannon and Al Golden eras; three Super Bowls; three World Series; three Final Fours (both of Florida’s national titles); just about every Orange Bowl game since 2000; and more than my fair share of the Marlins’ highs and lows.

I watched Giancarlo Stanton launch home runs off the roof of apartment buildings in Jupiter when he was in the minors and then followed him to Minnesota for his debut in the Home Run Derby. I was with Jose Fernandez in New York for his first All-Star appearance and at Marlins Park talking to players and fans hours after he and two others died in a horrific boat crash.

I was on the floor in Dallas when the Heat won its first championship in 2006, in the building for the Big Three era and in Pat Riley’s office the day he told us Chris Bosh would never play again.

As much as the Herald will always hold a special place in my heart, I want to get back to the job I fell in love with. That’s telling good, interesting stories and providing real insight and context.

As the new University of Miami beat writer and a columnist with a voice on South Florida sports for The Athletic, my goal is to be your eyes and ears and to go beyond what you are used to reading.

I hope you will come with me on this journey.

The second half, for me, is about to begin.

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(Photo by Jonathan Dyer / USA TODAY Sports)