I’m not the first sports writer the Observer has had, but I’ve enjoyed being the one who got to build on the foundation Matt Mauney and the rest of the original crew started.
For those keeping score at home, I’ve been here a bit more than seven years and am glad I’ve gotten to stick around for as long as I have. Living and working in Plant City sometimes feels like getting let in on a well-kept secret and I’ve often been the one who gets to tell the world (of eastern Hillsborough County) when cool things happen here. The last few years have especially been fun to be here for as people who care about the city have been putting it in position to flourish.
And, of course, there have been plenty of great sports stories for me to tell. There always have been, but I think Plant City has become more well-known in that arena in the last few years than it was when I got here. In 2019, when Plant City and Strawberry Crest faced off for the state baseball championship, not one other reporter in the press box at Hammond Stadium asked where Plant City is. Dover, of course, was a different story — but I’m confident the Chargers will pin Dover on a map sooner than later so reporters like 813Preps’ Jarrett Guthrie and I won’t have to do it for others in the middle of a high-stakes playoff game. So, yeah, the Plant City area’s profile is growing.
Writing so many stories in the last seven-plus years about miraculous championship runs, underdogs overcoming huge odds, cool people doing incredible things and the history of those who paved the way for today’s young athletes has been awesome. There have been plenty of moments in my tenure where I’ve thought I have the coolest job in the world.
And now I’ve decided it’s time for someone else to have that job.
Like a veteran athlete contemplating their future during the middle of a season, I just knew when it was time to make a move. But this isn’t like Aaron Rodgers trying to get as far away from Green Bay as possible. I’m still going to live and play in Plant City.
Besides, I have a lot of obligations to fulfill now that I’m not keeping weird journalism hours. Heck, I’ve been planning to get Indian food with some of you since before anyone knew what COVID-19 was, and now there’s no evening assignment to make me settle for eating Taco Bell on the way back to filing copy at night.
P.S.: I love you, Taco Bell. That was not meant to hurt you.
It’s been a pleasure getting to know many of you in the community and I’m always grateful for the opportunities you’ve given me to tell your stories. I’m hopeful my successor will take the reins and run with this job. There’s a lot of potential here for anyone to find and tell incredible stories. I just hope they earn your trust sooner than later. We couldn’t do what we do without you. Thank you all for trusting me with your stories when you didn’t have to.
I’ve worked with some incredible talents here in the newsroom. We’ve been very fortunate to have several writers who either won awards for their reporting or easily could have. Don’t get me wrong: if it doesn’t say “Pulitzer,” it’s worthless to a lot of us in the field. But several of my editorial teammates over the years have helped me grow professionally and personally, even if they weren’t here for very long in the grand scheme of things. Our jobs would have been markedly more difficult without each other, especially in the last few years when we’ve operated with just two full-time reporters, a small group of regular columnists and the readers who send in photos for our weekly contests. I’ll miss our editorial and design team terribly.
And there are the dogs. So many dogs. I believe every workplace without a full-blown restaurant needs at least one dog or even a cat on the payroll. We have at least four here but I’m especially going to miss Karah, the world’s most photogenic pit bull.
Soon you’ll meet Taylor Jenkins, whom some of you may know from his work covering the Bucs with Pewter Report. Taylor has also written for the Observer in the past as a stringer for special sections and now he’s got our Sports section to shape as he sees fit. I’m very excited to see what he does with the section going forward and I know he’s glad he gets to be in Plant City more often.
You’ll likely see my byline in next week’s paper — my last hurrah will be a trip to Fort Myers to cover Durant’s state semifinal baseball game — but this is the last issue for which I’m a part of the Observer team. Tomorrow is my last day in the newsroom and then I’m off to start a new opportunity. Importantly, I’m also going to fix my sleep schedule.
It’s been a wilder ride in Plant City than I expected when I first took this job in 2013, but I’m glad I bought the ticket.
