I spent the summer after my junior year of college interning at a sports tech company by day and sleeping in a converted office in a home in the Troostwood neighborhood of Kansas City by night. When I was free from work on the weekend and desperate for entertainment, I used to walk down in the direction of the Country Club Plaza neighborhood, but I kept going straight through the rows of glitzy shops until I reached the Kansas state line and crossed into Westwood. Then I would turn around, head back and repeat the ritual a week later.
I’d like to say I was inexorably drawn to the Sunflower State, but in reality, I probably just found it novel, as a native Angeleno, that another state was a mere 30-minute walk away instead of four hours east on Interstate 10.
Years have passed and, this time as a sports journalist, I’m back in Kansas for much, much longer than a few moments. It should go without saying that my decision to return here — and to plant my feet firmly in Lawrence this time around — was far more purposeful than any of those meandering, arbitrary weekend strolls.
I have arrived here as the new sports editor for the Journal-World and KUsports.com with a knowledge of the rigorous coverage of the KU beat that this city expects — and fully deserves. I plan to build on the Journal-World’s rich tradition in this area and supplement it with some distinctive features and longer-term enterprise work, the likes of which I became so fond of crafting during my tenure as a sports reporter at The Bakersfield Californian.
When I worked for the paper in Bakersfield, I had a running joke with our managing editor that I would track down any athlete who had ever set foot in Kern County for any length of time and spill 1,000 words’ worth of ink on them.
In truth, I am not quite so fanatical about such pursuits. But I like to think that I get pretty close.
I hope to bring this essential tirelessness to the competitive KU beat, leveraging my capacity for detailed research and my distinctive authorial voice to set it apart from the rest. And, as an editor myself now, rest assured I will not only take the requisite time to highlight Douglas County’s best and brightest but ensure the rest of our coverage does too. The goal is, of course, to bolster the Journal-World and KUsports.com as invaluable resources for Lawrence and beyond.
And as you all know, Lawrence isn’t just any sports town. I’ve been here less than a week and I have been impressed and a little bit stunned by how fervently everyone here manages to follow the Jayhawks.
Personally, I’m thrilled to come in at such a pivotal time for numerous KU programs. The athletic department features an intriguing mix of blue-chip powerhouses and plucky upstarts. As someone who grew up erroneously believing Kansas was a perennial football juggernaut — don’t blame me, I started following the sport in earnest during the Mark Mangino era — I’m particularly interested to see how Lance Leipold builds on the momentum and national attention that the program garnered last season.
I firmly believe what I learned in journalism school, which is that part of being a responsible sports reporter is establishing oneself as visible, present and accountable out in the community. I do intend to keep walking around aimlessly — even though, as far as I can tell, Massachusetts Street doesn’t go all the way north to Nebraska or south to Oklahoma — so please say hello if you encounter me in Lawrence, and feel free to tell me everything I could be doing better. I will do my best to evolve over time, along with the programs I cover.
