BIGGEST COLLABORATION/ROUNDUP EVER || 30 AMAZING WRITERS TELL HOW THEY GOT CONNECTED TO SPORTS || Sports Summit
Edition #227. This is going to be one of the most heartwarming piece you've ever read, so stick around and read everyone's story!
Sports Summit So Far!
This quarter’s Sports Summit has been absolutely awesome, and what better way to finish it off1 than with the biggest roundup in
history!Well, let’s start right away!
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Please don’t try to attempt this record just to beat me. This was incredibly hard to do, and it took a lot of time, effort, and planning. 30 writers doesn’t seem like much at first glance, but this was SOOO HARD. This is a completely original idea! It was originally planned to be 50 writers. Paid subscribers get the full story.
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Despite not growing up in a sports family, the other kids and my friends at school were always hyped on basketball and football. You couldn’t go one class without someone saying “Kobe” after they threw something in the trash. We also used to have our own variant of football during our free time. Years later, I really started getting into the NBA & NFL, I slowly learned the games by watching, doing research on the history of the sports, and following a lot of great writers and websites to inform myself. Sports really has been a way for me to distract myself from real life and to support the amazing talent who worked hard to get into the professional leagues. Everyone plays a part in sports and nobody should be counted out, no matter how big or small the role is.
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I’ve always been passionate about sports, especially baseball, but the extent to which I loved them only came to fruition on a cold night in Boston in 2017. In the first sports game I stayed until the finish, an astounding matchup between the Red Sox and Yankees, I was able to witness a 16 inning marathon and experience the rush of excitement that came from actually caring about the outcome of a game. Brett Gardner even tossed me his batting glove! Not only did I become invested that day, but I grew to appreciate the dedication of professional athletes, and the beauty of each and every game that brings happiness to so many people. All in all, this instance was such a simple experience that brought me so much joy, and ever since then I’ve been deeply connected to the world of sports.
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I got connected to sports the traditional route, though I somewhat ended up in a nontraditional place. My mother played Division 1 tennis, so I was put into tennis at a young age, enjoyed it, and eventually developed into a pro player later on. Traveled the world a bit, played tournaments, the whole nine yards. Then, after some injury woes (and a lot of other random things in between), I decided to start writing a bit. I was already an NBA fan by this point (you'd be surprised how many pro tennis players are big NBA fans) and a friend of mine joked I should start a newsletter. So, only partially taking the joke, I did, and now, somehow, we're here!
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I got connected to sports like many American children: by playing them. Soccer, then basketball, then football (never baseball).
But it was basketball that always drew me back in. Pickup basketball can happen anywhere at any time, between friends or total strangers. Every pickup court has its own hierarchy, its own history, and its own rules and regulations. Few have any barriers to entry. It's one of the only remaining "third places" left for kids and teens, and I lived on the courts during my formative years. Now in my mid-thirties, I’m quickly becoming the “old guy” whom everyone is nice to but secretly dreads having on their team. I have no regrets.
I always tell people that every important person in my life (outside of immediate family) came from my connections on the basketball court, either directly or indirectly (including my wife!). I can’t imagine life without ball.
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I was born to be a baseball fan. It's in my blood. My dad gave me my first baseball cards when I was 2, and I watched every game I could while I grew up. Eventually that love and devotion spread to other sports. Sports to me are more than just a hobby. It's a way to connect with others, to stop worrying about the frustrating things of the world, to engage with each other on an even and fair playing field. I get connected to sports because it connects me with other people.
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I grew up in a neighborhood where nearly every house had a basketball hoop, and the biggest yards doubled as football fields. Our games were anything but casual—full-speed tackles into landscaping made them as intense as they were competitive. Baseball was a backyard staple, played with a tennis ball for obvious reasons, everyone tried to “rob home runs” at the top of the fences. In the winter, you had two choices: ski or snowboard. I picked snowboarding, making me the odd one out among my in-laws, who are all avid skiers. Now, at 30, I keep things more laid-back, sticking to tennis and volleyball in the summer and limiting snowboarding to an annual Vermont trip (man, those lift tickets have gotten expensive). Sports shaped my closest friendships, turning childhood connections into lifelong bonds. Without them, I would have, and would still be, spending all my time indoors.
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I had been writing my own Fantasy Sports newsletter for friends and league-mates in the ‘90s, before I started my own Fantasy website in 2001. I reached out to other websites and helped spotlight some of their work, while also creating/managing writer leagues. Some of those leagues involved writers from CBS, ESPN, Fox Sports and Yahoo Sports, which helped me build a rapport with them and show what I could do.
Scott Engel was the Senior Fantasy Writer at CBS at the time, and he helped me get a job at CBS in customer service with an eye toward moving into content. Six months into the CS job, one of the main writers left CBS, and I got the call to The Show!
For the first year or so, I was mainly an update writer, and I’d often work 12 hours a day – and loved it. Engel, Tristan Cockcroft, Michael Fabiano and Dan Dobish taught me a ton – I learned I didn’t know as much about writing as I thought I did!
My recommendation to anyone trying to get into sports writing: Start your own thing to get practice. Offer free articles to anyone who takes them. Help other writers reach their goals and get exposure. Finally, be humble and not sensitive to criticism.
Writing about sports is fun – don’t make it un-fun.
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I got connected because when I was young, I saw my favorite team win titles and now I'm connected to sports and is a huge 49ers fan. I hope that the 49ers can take home the Lombardi Trophy back to the Bay soon!
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My love for sports started back in 1st grade. It wasn’t that long ago, since I’m just a teenager, but that’s when I first heard of Todd Gurley. If you don’t know who he is, Todd Gurley is a Rams running back legend who, unfortunately, had to retire at a young age due to injuries. Now, I used to watch his highlights ALL the time. Seriously, hours and hours of his insane highlight reel. This guy was breaking tackles, hurdling, making defenders look silly—he was just fun to watch. As a kid growing up in Los Angeles, Gurley was an idol of mine. I’ve never been interested in playing football myself, but I admired him so much. In fact, when he signed with the Atlanta Falcons back in 2020, I didn’t smile for a week. Todd Gurley was something special, and his name will forever have a place in my heart as the reason I have a love for sports.
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It's felt like I've been connected to sports since birth. Playing baseball and basketball as a kid are some of my earliest memories. Plus, my day before school was never complete until I watched Sportscenter in the morning (at least once). I can thank my mom and grandfather, who nurtured my love for sports as early and as often as possible in various ways. While I peaked as a basketball player in elementary school, baseball was my first love and greatest passion. I played through high school and college while studying Sport Management. I began writing about baseball once my playing days were done to stay connected to the game. That was nearly 15 years ago now (wow, I'm getting old), so as they say, the rest is history.
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My earliest memory of getting into sports was probably playing in the Smoke Rise Baptist Church basketball league on Saturday mornings as a small child. My dad would drive me to the games, where I quickly discovered the thrill of scoring — though I may have celebrated each basket a little too much at first. (I think I channeled Dennis Rodman’s energy [youtube.com/watch?v=temDNa6amIk] until a coach told me to chill, LOL.) Beyond the game itself, I also learned about the simple joys of postgame snacks and sodas at the concession stand. Soon enough, I was hooked — on not just basketball, but also baseball, touch football and, a little later, my true childhood sports love: hockey. Looking back, it’s tough to explain exactly what pulled me in. Was it the competition, the development of skills, the attention, or the chance to bond with teammates and family? I’m still not sure. But something clicked for me on those Saturday mornings, and it changed my life forever.
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My sports journey began at the racetrack. I was born into the sports world, because my dad worked as a horse trainer. To facilitate this work, we lived in a house across the street from the town track, meaning I could sit on my front porch and watch the horse races with my mother. I began doing this at an age too young to remember, and continued for years. This love of racing eventually transferred into cars. For much of my childhood, myself and my grandfather would make the pilgrimage to local car racing tracks on Friday and Saturday nights, before I would watch racing from the porch on Sunday afternoons. My life revolved around racing as a child. Not just because racing was my dad’s job. It was what I enjoyed doing. Believe it or not, considering I’m a football writer, this love for racing did not translate into loving stick-and-ball sports until I was a teenager. Being a kid raised in rural Canada, with a father working in horse racing, is a unique background. My love for sport was total, but my exposure to American sports was nonexistent, until I got old enough to begin to decide my own interests. The first time I can remember watching an NFL game live happens in 2013. My dad had always been a fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers, but his Sunday afternoons were always occupied. The games were never on TV around the house, so his fandom didn’t mean anything to me, but when I finally got the chance to watch a football game myself, the speed and the violence resonated. As a kid conditioned to watching racing, the fusion of speed and violence hooked me. I’ve not been able to get away from football ever since.
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My dad grew up an avid Knicks/Mets fan in NJ/CT, and my first sports memory is watching the 2000 Subway World Series as a 5 year old with him and my older brother. My brother rooted for the Yankees (front-runner) and I tragically fell in love with rooting for bridesmaid-but-never-the-bride teams (the Mets, then the C-Webb Kings and the 7SOL Suns, then the Browns later on). My favorite morning past-time for years was finding the sports page and scouring the box scores, since I wasn't about to read those boring, long sports articles (ironic). On the morning of May 17th, 2007, I still remember rushing to see the NBA box scores, only to see that the Suns lost 88-85 in the game that Stoudemire and Diaw were suspended in for leaving the bench after Robert Horry cheated his way to another ring. Sports, there's nothing like it!
from
remember the exact play that got me into sports. It was a Cavaliers-Hornets game during the 2017-18 season in Charlotte, LeBron picked off a pass and threw it down in transition. It was a simple play, and one LeBron has done hundreds of times, but for me, a 12- or 13-year-old kid, it got me hooked. I started my NBA fandom immediately and started blogging soon after. I found communities online of like-minded, passionate people, developed my writing voice and realized "This is what I want to do with my life." Eventually, that grew into scouting, and I'm happy to say, I've found exactly where I belong.
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You could say sports have been a major part of my life from day one. I was born into one of the biggest Browns families there is, with season tickets spanning back to Red Right 88 and my love for sport blossomed from there. When I went to college, I majored in sport management (my high school baseball career took playing off the table) and started my path as a Sports Information Director (SID). Three FBS-level schools later, I got out of the SID business to move more into higher education in general. But that doesn’t mean I wanted out of sports. SID Sports was born and here I am, two years later, covering and teaching about how the business of college athletics works. I also still freelance as an SID, statting games, taking photos and doing some graphic design.
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Sports have always been a family affair for me. It’s why I feel so connected to sports. My parents tell me I started shooting on my mini hoop when I was eight months old. At the time, my dad worked for the Clippers. Later, he worked across the sports industry with the front offices of teams across all the major US sports leagues.
Because of that, we had the privilege of going to many games. I remember sitting behind home plate at the local minor league baseball team. Being a ball boy at an NBA game. Going to hockey and indoor soccer games. It didn’t matter what the sport was—my dad always took me. Sports was and still is the bonding mechanism between my dad and me. Sports = family.
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For me, sports has always been a part of my life. From an early age, I played multiple sports. I played basketball, softball, soccer, and kickball growing up in school. As I got older, my love for basketball became stronger and I knew I wasn’t going pro but I wanted to find a way to still be involved in the game. Eventually, I started to watch more sports talk shows and read the newspapers about my favorite sports. I gravitated watching ESPN early on with Stuart Scott, Skip Bayless, Stephen A. Smith, and NBA TV with Andre Aldridge and Ahmad Rashad. I started following writers like David Aldridge, Sekou Smith, and Zach Lowe as I became a better writer. For me, sports are a way to bring people together, from different backgrounds, races, religions, and colors. As a basketball fan, the only color that matters is that orange ball. The beauty of sports has so many different aspects of life and it brings people joy.
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I have been a huge sports fan for my entire life. I grew up with baseball being my first passion, in large part thanks to my father, a lifelong fan and ballplayer himself. My fandom grew to extend to nearly all sports, and in my late-teens/early-20s I developed a new fascination with data and statistics. This timing coincided perfectly with the rise of data analytics in sports! I earned a Bachelor’s in Business Analytics and am now close to finishing my Master’s in Data Analytics. Naturally, I was obsessed with reading about sports stats and enjoyed running my own analytical models on the side. I was an avid reader of FiveThirtyEight and was devastated when they ceased their sports coverage in 2023. Soon after I thought, “Hey, why can’t I do that? I love sports, enjoy writing, and know stats.” In early 2024, I started BeyondTheScore, publishing articles on current sports news and analytics. It was just a fun hobby, and I never imagined it would grow to 200+ subscribers. A lot of the credit goes to Substack and great subscribers like Smayan for supporting my work and helping my newsletter grow!
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I grew up listening to John Sterling call New York Yankees games on the radio in the car with my family on summer Sundays. All I ever wanted was to be a shortstop in pinstripes. As the years went by, my focus drifted to the NBA and — since 2006 — Arsenal Football Club, the Premier League, the Champions League and all the rest. It’s rare these days that I hear any game from any sport on the radio. But I still think about how Sterling conveyed what was happening on the field in real time, painting a vivid picture of live events as they unfolded with simple, declarative sentences that clicked as soon as they hit your ear. I’ve yet to achieve quite the same on my own (not live) broadcast, but he did have 5,060 consecutive games to hone his skills.
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My love for college basketball started when I was growing up in Indiana. Being a Hoosier, basketball runs in your blood, but my local college was a “mid-major” school in the Missouri Valley Conference, the Evansville Purple Aces. I have so many fond memories of attending nearly every game, every year with my father. I mean, how many times can you say you got to watch NBA players like Doug McDermott, Fred VanVleet, and more play against your school in your mid-west city? When Wichita State went to the Final Four in 2013, Evansville beat them both times in conference. When I tell you, I still get chills at just how loud the Ford Center was in person for that home win, it was a feeling that I wish I could re-live again. I’ve lived, breathed, bleed mid-major college basketball, which has all led to Bracket Busters.
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I pretended to be Kansas guard Rex Walters at recess in fifth grade. In 6th grade, my college basketball world expanded beyond the Jayhawks and Final Four weekend when I saw a Maryland versus St.Louis first-round matchup: the Terrapins? playing the Billikens? What is this? Kansas didn’t win a championship until after I grew up and became a father, but I loved filling a live bracket every March. I was hooked on the field of 64’s unusual matchups and infinite possibilities. Hardball 5, the first video game I bought with my own money, provided a similar experience. I was Dr. Strange seeing decades of baseball whiz by in my own little PC dimension. MLB players shifted around a league of fictional teams while I watched for broken records and legendary seasons. The March Madness bracket and video game baseball hooked me on a lifetime of watching how possible narratives get whittled down to one.
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Sports have always been one of my biggest passions. From watching my favorite teams on TV to playing baseball 5 times a week to visiting a new ballpark, sports have been my life. Although football and basketball have always been fun to watch and play for me, there is one sport that has really been my lifestyle ever since I was little— baseball. Growing up, I got into sports at a young age, playing catch in the backyard or shooting around for a little. Although this was all fun for me, baseball was more than fun. During the season, I never wanted to watch a movie or a TV show, all I wanted to do was watch some Major League Baseball. Still to this day, baseball is a lifestyle for me, and this is why I write here on Substack— because of my love for the game.
from
Sports were ingrained in me from a very young age. My parents were from Long Island, New York and brought an intense Yankees/Giants fandom with them to the DC area, where I was born. From a very young age, we were playing baseball at the local elementary school, football in the street, and playing golf in the backyard. I was a competitive golfer from 9 years old, through high school, college, and professionally for a couple years. Throughout life, I had developed a passion for sports that has never dwindled. I've combined the passion of sports and a love for writing into a Substack! Now, I mostly write about baseball as it is my favorite sport to watch and analyze as an adult. It's the American sport that has stayed most true to its roots. There's just something romantic about baseball, right?
and
I got hooked on baseball first and baseball cards were actually a huge reason why. My parents told me I wrote really tiny because that's what I saw on baseball cards. I loved "The Baseball Bunch" TV show with Johnny Bench. Rickey Henderson was my favorite player. He was young, brash, fast and played with a style that was a mesmerizing. He also always seemed to be waving at people in the stands. Rickey broke the single-season stolen base record on my birthday in 1982. That sealed it. He was my guy. Once I realized that I wasn't good enough to reach the majors, writing and talking about baseball was always going to be my career.
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When I was three years old, I lived in Las Vegas, and my parents signed me up for tball. We moved to my current home a few months later. As I got older I started to play basketball, run, play baseball. I’ve grown up around sports, as my parents played basketball hockey softball and my dad refs lacrosse also. My grandpa has season tickets to the Cavs and the guards also. As I got older I got more serious about sports. Playing on elite travel baseball teams, winning state championships ect. I always loved watching sports, collecting cards, and I also like writing. So I combined it all to write here on Substack.
from
My connection to sports is tethered directly to a father who has spent a lifetime in service to the game of basketball. I attended my first basketball game before I saw my first month. There are no periods in my life in which I can remember basketball not being a steady fixture in my world. Even if Pixar did make them up, my concept of core memories are splattered with moments spent in gyms watching games, or talking basketball in any environment willing to suffer me. The game was never forced upon me, but whether by intense proximity or passed along affinity, I have loved basketball for as long as I can really remember caring about anything besides my family.
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As predictable as this might sound for someone who covers the San Antonio Spurs, my fascination with sports started with the Silver and Black. Several of my earliest and most cherished memories came from watching basketball on the couch with my moms, who ushered in my fandom just as Gregg Popovich and Tim Duncan began building what would become an iconic dynasty in the 2-1-0.
While those two were the pillars that held the franchise together on and off the court, the arrival of Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili inspired me to step on the hardwood. Their signature eurosteps and teardrops directly influenced my play style. But ultimately it was their underdog origins as overlooked prospects that made me, a short and chubby kid, feel like no one could stop me from reaching my hoops dreams.
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I was raised in a blue collar midwestern family that loved all things Chicago sports, so naturally I fell in line. I was so passionate about sports that I pursued my Bachelor’s degree in sports journalism. I find it amazing how sports can bring all sorts of different people together.
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I have my dad to thank for getting connected to sports, for sure. Soccer was always on in the house growing up, and I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t interested in sports. I grew up obsessed with Manchester United and I ended up having season tickets for my local soccer team, who are a few leagues before the Premier League. That actually led to a career in soccer for a little bit. But going to games with my dad, brother and grandad certainly makeup a lot of my fondest memories as a kid. I then fell in love with American sports by watching clips on Sportscenter on a random sports channel back home. That sparked a deep connection that still burns brightly to this day, and those experiences inspired me to pursue a career as a sports writer in America. Either way, sports has always been a huge part of my life, and I’m incredibly thankful for that.
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Sports. There’s nothing better than it. The feeling you get when your team loses or wins a game is on another level, especially when it’s high stakes.
I grew up in a sort of a sports family, so we all had knowledge of our sports teams, and I became heavily tuned in. I still remember all the intense sports discussion I had with my family and friends, whether it be the Red Sox comeback and the Astros cheating scandal, or the Spurs super team and the Pats dominance with Tom Brady.
That was one of the main reasons I started this newsletter, because I wanted to share my opinions with the world, and I want to hear the takes of other people too. And by biggest inspiration to start a newsletter, would be
and John Breech from CBS Sports.I’m thankful for all those on Substack that’s making my dream come true;
and .In the end, sports can do you however you think it can do you. It can make your life easier. It can make your life harder. Sports has opened up several opportunities for me in my life, and I thank it.
Be sure to comment your story down below!
Part 2 of the mailbag comes Monday (ESTIMATED)
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Great article, thanks for the feature!
Superb work, Smayan, and thank you for putting this together and for including me with some truly great writers!