I don’t think there is a better way to prepare yourself to enter the SEC than growing up outside Washington D.C. and going to a basketball school in the Big Ten.

Okay that’s a lie.

Yet when I came on my very first visit to this lovely village not even a month ago, I was hooked immediately. As if this was some sort of sports pilgrimage I’d never had back home. My new editors didn’t have to twist my arm to convince me to come here. There is something about the right college town that feels like home. I felt that as a high school kid in Bloomington, Indiana. And I felt it again when I took a sip of Toomer’s lemonade.

Now here on staff, I’m so excited to tell the stories of the Auburn Tigers you love, and I can’t wait to hear your own stories, too.

But you may want to know how I ended up here in the first place.

I started like most sports writers: dreams of playing on the field and never once thinking about writing about what happened on it. I thought I’d play baseball except for one tiny little problem. I stunk. About a thousand other writers probably have that same story.

Yet when reality in the form of a pop fly strikes you in the head, you find where your real passion is. I left the Maryland suburbs of Washington D.C. and went to find a big-time sports school where I could join the student newspaper. When I went to Indiana, I thought that passion was sports. But I quickly realized it was more than that — it was storytelling. Storytelling about more than just sports, but about humans. I tried to do that writing about Bob Knight, about the COVID-19 pandemic and about cemeteries.

In college, I covered the perennial powerhouse Hoosier football team and the maybe slightly more historically relevant basketball team. I covered bowl games and March Madness. I’ve interned on both coasts and covered NFL, MLB and NBA teams. I interviewed Damian Lillard about critically hard-hitting topics including his birthday party, and Justin Tucker about a GoPro on his helmet.

After college I left sports entirely, wanting to chase a new topic. I took a job covering criminal justice with the Tampa Bay Times. I’ve spent a year here in Florida and as I watched college football from home, I missed the days I spent in press box. The days chasing scoops and finding a unique story in the way only sports can bring.

And frankly the barbecue in Florida isn’t great. They say the further south in Florida you go, the further north you get. Nor can I say Washington D.C. is exactly the barbecue capital.

It all brought me here, to Auburn. Back to sports. To better barbecue. To a place so literally centered on college sports that Jordan-Hare Stadium (which I do now know is “Jerden” not “Jordan”) is actually in the center of campus.

I’m so happy to be here. I can’t wait to move to Auburn. And I look forward to hearing from you all soon. My ears, and email inbox, are always open.