The Community: The people around me
Where do I start? Most likely, if you are reading this piece, you know me from the lacrosse community or just in general, but I'll give a little background for those who are new here.
This piece will be focused on the lacrosse community but wraps around to all of those around me. The way I got into the lacrosse community was well a little different. I’ll get this out of the way, I didn’t play lacrosse growing up. I grew up in Odenton MD, right smack in the middle of Baltimore and Annapolis MD, with the only connection to the game being my uncle who played in college. Wow, shocker, OMG.
Yes, I found my way into this community as the newspaper kid, a high school newspaper sports editor who would cover his high school team’s games back in 2016–2017. Fast forward a couple years to early 2019, by this point I've gained a general knowledge of the sport. At this point, I follow some college and pro lacrosse, occasionally watching on social and television. I blog on the side about other sports, but I've mainly decided to focus on school, work and life.
I am sitting in my first journalism class at the Community College of Baltimore County, and the professor gives out an assignment that says go do a 1 on 1 interview with someone of significance, it could be anyone in your life, anyone you look up to, literally anyone. I take this and reach outside of my normal box for say, I reach out to Bill O’Brien who formerly played in the NLL and MLL. I had been following him on social media for awhile, mainly for fitness content but I had been watching his lacrosse career unfold from afar. Unfortunately, I am unable to get an interview set up in time for the assignment, so I interview someone else I am close too.
Something in me still told me to do the interview with O’ Brien and I'm sure glad I did so. Not only was it my way back into journalism, but little did I know it was my introduction into the lacrosse community. I got inspired and found lacrosse so captivating to the point where I would try to finesse my way on social media and end up interviewing many names within the lacrosse community thought 2019. I eventually found myself invested in all forms of the sport, college, pro, women’s even the business side.
As things started grow thought 2019 and 2020, I often found myself opening up more not just about lacrosse but about life on social media. This was very unlike me because as many of you know, for the most part I am a very private person. Now thinking about it, the reason I had such a willingness to open up was because of the lacrosse community. In the mix of just pursuing the two things I love(lacrosse and journalism), I found myself in the community of very like minded people who share the same values and passion for the game as I do.
In that community, things became very personal to a point. I would often share the highs of what I have going on in life on social media which was nice. However, last week when I was at the lowest point of my life, I felt like it would only be right to share that to the same community that has been with me through the good. Yes, I am referring to the unfortunate passing of my mom. I debated for a little bit on whether I wanted to actually post this on social media. I grew up with the mindset of just keep it moving, no matter the circumstances and I’ve never been one to seek out sympathy and what not. At this point, I felt like if I am going to share the highs with the world, I might as well share the lows.
I want to thank you all for the kind words and messages over the past few days. I have seen them all, and tried my best to respond to them all. I apologize if I haven’t.
The point I've been dancing around in this piece is that I am blessed for the people around me. Whether you are in the lacrosse community or not, I am grateful for those around me, those that have been there through the highs and the lows or just got to know me. It’s pretty funny how the world has worked, chances are 70 percent of the people reading this probably haven’t met me in person. That's amazing, that you all have been able to support someone you barely know like you all have myself. I hope to meet some of you in person soon in the coming weeks and months.
To wrap this all up, I will continue to follow the path that the world takes me. I’ll still be talking, writing, tweeting about lacrosse and hope to expand on such soon as I graduate college next year. To those around me: Thank You.
