Welcome to the opening chapter of my new blog.
It’s so new that I don’t even have a name for it yet. I haven’t given that all that much thought.
There once was a time when I would have mulled it over ideas, tossed them aside, revisited them, tossed them aside again.
Then I would have stewed over not having a catchy name for awhile longer, until the frustration within me bubbled over and I would have absolutely nothing to show for my misguided efforts. That was the perfectionist within me.
To start this latest venture, I simply started writing, and I’ll let what I write take me, sooner or later, to a name that fits.
On that note, let the words flow…
Starting with the title of this post, which I teased on my Facebook page earlier today.
I thought writing in the truest sense of the term was behind me after 26 years in sports journalism.
I was burned out from the daily grind of covering games and tracking down the latest breaking news. In the nearly three years since I left the industry, I have been asked many times if I miss it. I have always answered with an emphatic no.
My passion now is health and fitness, and specifically helping people gain or regain the level of health and fitness that will allow them to live the life they covet. Still, deep down, I would be foolish to think writing would go away forever.
If I were to never write again, I would still love it. Especially now, because I’m writing because I want to do it, not because I have to do it to earn a paycheck. I do it when I have something I feel the need to share with family, friends and others who have followed the major transition in life that I (really, my family) made nearly 3 years ago.
(And of course, I love you all — for who you are, what you represent, and for all the support you have given me and my family).
Writing has been a passion of mine since I was a kid reading out loud in my bedroom (and loud enough for my parents to hear me clearly from every corner of our home, and probably the neighbors to hear within a several block radius).
Of course, I gravitated to the newspapers – and specifically, the sports section, being the devoted NYC sports fan I was (and still am). I would write stories of games I watched on TV, then of games in high school when I wasn’t playing in them.
By the time I slept through my first political science class in college in the fall of 1989, and decided a legal career wasn’t for me, I had joined The Ram, the student-run newspaper at Fordham University in NYC, and proceeded down the path I would take to pursue my first passion – sports journalism.
For nearly three decades, I stayed on that path, and it led to covering the Stanley Cup Final (twice), countless games and events in North America’s four major professional sports leagues (NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL) as well as Major League Soccer and two NCAA Frozen Fours hockey championships, among other memorable experiences.
Now here I am, as two passions collide into the latest venture in a second career that has led to experiencing a ton of firsts.
Such as learning every day to get out of my head, which for those of you who know me best isn’t an easy thing for me to do. I still at times have a tendency to overthink things, which often doesn’t get me to the answers I’m looking for.
But I’ve learned to go for it and see where it leads me. I will enjoy where the words I write in here take me.
To thoughts on all sorts of topics that bring fitness and family together, and how a healthy lifestyle can lead us to living our best life and inspire those around us to do the same.
And soon enough, to a name for this blog. It will come to me. Or maybe it won’t.
Perhaps all of you reading this can help me.
Either way, I won’t worry about it. I’ll just love doing it.