Time To Say Goodbye

It’s funny how things work out sometimes.

Going into my Junior year of college in 2013 I was all geared up to write for a little known sports website ran by students at the Walter Cronkite School, covering the Arizona State basketball team.

The job was mine, or so I was told.

Turns out I was snubbed right before the season started, with my spot given to a couple of freshman girls. Now, I am the farthest thing from a sexist, all I am saying is an upperclassman male was in charge, and gave my position to freshman girls.

As the saying goes, “C’mon man!”

This left me in a bind for how to fill my free time. I did have an internship with the Arizona Republic, but I wanted more.  I’m always the one to push for more and never settle for anything but the best, and I definitely was not going to let one disappointment deter me from accomplishing what I set out to accomplish that semester and school year.

So, instead of sulking, I scanned job boards and looked for something else I could add to my schedule. I quickly came along a post from Valley of the Suns that needed a writer to cover practices.

I applied, and after talking with former Editor Kevin Zimmerman, accepted the position.

Little did I know how much this writing job would change my life.

I was fortunate and beyond lucky to have experience things I never thought would be possible until much later in life. From interviewing childhood heros such as LeBron James and Amar’e Stoudemire to covering NBA games and sitting courtside to having Goran Dragic shake my hand goodbye when he was traded… the list of memories goes on and on over the last two and a half years.

I will never forget the third practice I attended when I was left alone to conduct Suns head coach Jeff Hornacek’s daily press conference by myself. At that point, I am still a wide-eyed college kid in disbelief of being able to be at a professional sports practice. I was in no position to do a whole interview by myself without time to prepare.

It was a Saturday afternoon in November and on a day when very little media comes to a practice. I remember being led down to the practice court and thinking it was kind of weird I was the only one there. After a few minutes of standing around, I see Hornacek coming towards me. My heart started beating quickly when it occurred to me I was about to interview a NBA head coach all by myself.

I don’t remember much from that interview, but do know that I made it out alive and breathing. That was the day I officially entered the real world.

From that point forward I thrived on attending every practice possible and bringing you, the reader, as much content as full-time regulars Paul Coro, Craig Grialou or Matt Petersen do. There were days I had to run back and forth from U.S. Airways Center to class at the Cronkite school, or other days such as on “Bus Watch” when I missed out on a test to cover the events of the trade deadline last season.

Luckily that test didn’t cost me graduation!!

I took great pride in being a regular among the Suns beat reporter group at the majority of practices over the last two years and could not thank Coro, Grialou and Peterson enough all of their help and advice during this time. I learned so much by just observing them, and Suns fans are extremely fortunate to have such great writers cover this team year in and year out.

I would also like to thank the incredible Suns public relations staff for all of their help. We as a site are very gracious of the opportunity they give us to cover the team. They don’t have any reason to give us the amount of access that they do and it’s a great privilege for us to have and something I am extremely thankful for.

Also a big thank you to former Editor Kevin Zimmerman and Valley of the Suns Founder Michael Schwartz for hiring on some inexperience college kid to represent them at practices. I feel like I got everything I could ever imagine and so much more out of this job, which has opened the door to internships with the Arizona Diamondbacks (Broadcasting) , Arizona Coyotes (Public Relations) and my new job which I start on Tuesday with ArizonaSports.com.

You guys created something out of nothing and over many years of hard work, turned it into a website that earned over 300,000 views in the month of February this year. I did my best to maintain the credibility of this website and hope I did you guys proud.

Finally, I would like to give my best wishes to Gerald Bourguet as he will take complete control of Valley of the Suns. He has done an amazing job already, and with a big talent pool of writers to work with that include Scott Chasen, Spencer Hann, Gavin Schall and Mark Harris, the reader of this website will continue to be spoiled with great content moving forward.

So here we are… Two and a half years that flew by quicker than Yuta Tabuse’s stint with the Suns. It has been a whirlwind for me and I would like to thank all of our loyal readers for coming back and reading my work on a daily basis.

Tomorrow, I begin a new journey in my professional career, but first, I must say good-bye to the past.

May the good times continue to roll!