This article appears in the April 2020 edition of US Lacrosse Magazine. Don’t get the mag? Head to USLacrosse.org to subscribe.

“Do you feel like you got lucky?”

The question caught me off guard. It came during a career day presentation at a high school in Maryland. I shook it off at first, spouting some sensible but, in hindsight, lazy advice about making your own luck by putting yourself out there for others to see and stretching your comfort zone.

The presentation, entitled “Thrills, Chills and Skills,” covered why my job is awesome (thrills), how the work can be meaningful (chills), what it takes and when you know it’s a good story (skills).

I talked about having access to the sport’s biggest stars and brightest minds, fanboying about getting to interview my childhood lacrosse idols in the Gait brothers and covering the entirety of Paul Rabil’s metamorphosis from self-conscious collegian to the most visible and influential figure the sport has ever seen.

I talked about illuminating the human condition as we produced stories on the Ugandan national team, on the otherness felt by black and Native American athletes and on the incredible comeback stories of Connor McKemey and Ben Harrow. 

That’s when the young woman raised her hand.

“Do you feel like you got lucky?”

Absolutely, I should have replied. Because without the generosity of US Lacrosse members, donors and partners, I never would have had this opportunity.

“This is, like, exactly what I want to do,” the young woman told me afterward.

Just a few months earlier, she had signed a national letter of intent to play lacrosse at Arizona State, which has an excellent journalism program. But the classes are on a different campus than where most athletes stay and study.

I reassured her that if she wants to be a writer or editor, it is more important to put her craft into practice than it is to have the perfectly declared major. After all, had it not been for a feature I wrote for the Wilmington (Del.) News Journal on a decorated running coach, my resume might never have made it to Brian Logue’s desk.

Lucky? You bet.

It’s easy to get so caught up in the now, that you forget about the then. Fifteen years ago, I had no clue where my career was headed. It’s rather unusual to be at one place for so long right out of school. I found family (my wife, actually) and a purpose here at US Lacrosse that sustains me.

As U.S. women’s national team coach Jenny Levy writes in her open letter to lacrosse (page 60 and linked here), “You have had the single-biggest impact on the trajectory of my life. I promise to pay it forward.”