Personal Narrative
A quote from the late NBA legend, Kobe Bryant, hangs on a purple Post-It note in my room. I read it two to three times every day and night to remind myself what I’m working for.
“It's not the destination, it's the journey. And if you can understand that, then what you'll see happen is you won't accomplish your dreams, your dreams won't come true; something greater will.”
My dream destination looked like an NBA championship. The journey took me elsewhere.
My freshman year of high school, just one year after my family’s move to Texas from Chicago, I realized I had depression.
I couldn’t tell you how I figured it out, I just knew I did.
Countless nights crying myself to sleep struggling with finding my place - I put too much pressure on myself early on and it got to me fast. It worsened when I didn’t make the freshman basketball team, as I realized my dreams to be just like Kobe Bryant were crushed thanks to a piece of paper with my name left off.
That was the mental state for the rest of my first semester. Down, defeated, and just taking things one day at a time.
And then, a magazine and an email changed everything.
On a trip to the grocery store, my family picked up a VYPE magazine, full of high school sports news from around the Houston area. I was instantly intrigued about the company, as my love for sports started at birth. I played every sport imaginable as a kid and then transitioned into pretending to be a coach, and even trying out some play-by-play with the TV muted as I grew up.
An idea occurred to me - I would be a part of the freshman class opening Bridgeland High School in 2017, and I figured some sort of coverage would be needed for them. So I flipped to the front of the issue and emailed the editor-in-chief, Matt Malatesta, to see if there was a way I could contribute to the publication.
Little did I know that email, sent out on Jan. 2, 2018, at 11:05 p.m., would rewrite the entire course of my life.
The next morning, I got an email from Matthew Reese, the director of the new VYPE U internship program. It couldn’t have come at a better time.
I was accepted into the program, with no knowledge of anything to do with the media world. I began covering the basketball team, even though we didn’t have a varsity squad because it was Bridgeland’s first year.
I had finally found it. The inspiration I needed to work hard and make a name for myself.
A few months later, Samantha Berry contacted me. She was the adviser for Bridgeland Student Media and had noticed my work on social media throughout the past couple of months. At first, I wasn’t at all interested in joining the program. I was so laser-focused on my current position I didn’t want to try and add anything else into the mix. But after one ice cream social, I was all in and began working as the sports editor the next year.
Fast forward four years.
I’ve been working in the high school sports media field since that day in January 2018. I’ve worked for three different media outlets as an intern and have been an editor for Bridgeland Student Media since sophomore year. I helped start the online newspaper and magazine that first year. In my senior year, I adopted a beat system which doubled our productivity and helped the staff stay engaged despite hybrid learning in a global pandemic.
I’ve gained over 1,600 followers on Twitter and have over 5 million total engagements on the platform in my three years of work. I’ve created partnerships and have produced content for and about the National Basketball Association, National Football League, and National Collegiate Athletic Association athletes. I’ve created friendships with professional journalists and broadcasters who have worked for the Houston Astros, ESPN, 24/7 Sports, CNN, and more. I’ve won awards with the Texas Association of Journalism Educators, the Journalism Education Association, the Interscholastic League Press Conference, and the National Scholastic Press Association.
But the most important accomplishment for me was finding something I was happy with and passionate about. Something that would make my family proud. Something that would make my friends proud. There’s no doubt I still deal with my mental illness, but if it weren’t for journalism, and everything this industry has given me at such a young age, I’m not sure I would be alive today.
At some point in time, however, the mic turns off, and the broadcast ends and I will graduate. When that time comes, I still won’t be done working, but it’ll just be in a different aspect. My goal will be to give back to as many young journalists as I can. I want to help them on their journeys, just as several shaped me into who I am today through mentorships and creating opportunities in sports broadcasting for aspiring journalists.
All of this being said, I’m not finished.
I’m from the Windy City, all I know is hard work. I have my goals set to be a professional broadcaster in years to come and hope to be a household name when it’s all said and done. I want to be remembered as someone who worked for everything they had, earned every accolade, and remembered everyone who helped along the way. The destination changed, and the journey has paid dividends.