Around the Horn, THANK YOU for everything!

 Dear Around the Horn,

Everyone involved. From the producers to the editors, to the interns, to the talent on camera. Thank you. Thank you for giving me a north star to run toward as a young high school kid from Upstate New York. Thank you for giving me a template of what meaningful sports conversation should be in the most cluttered time period in the space. The show that you’ve put on for 22 years will always be my favorite show on television. For a half hour a day I felt like I always fit in somewhere.

Ever since my dream to play professional baseball ended, my dream shifted to get on this show and become a panelist. I never got there, I’ll never get there, but I want to put out work that would be seen on Around the Horn. Because one day that call will come. Because I owe it to that kid that would come home from school every day scream back at the television, even though nobody I was arguing with could hear me, because I believe that is the true lifeblood of the show and something that will be missing from the sports media landscape with the departure of this show. The why. Why are you right and everyone else wrong? Why is your take the best on this topic on this day? What is the real story behind all the surface level context? What do you have to add to this conversation that nobody else in the country has to make us all smarter?  All those types of questions elevate the conversation instead of keeping it at a level that doesn’t make anyone smarter.

Selfishly I don’t want the spirit of the show to end and try to keep the beacon of hope alive for the next generation that wants to be the next best sportswriter but doesn’t know how to get there. This show was a gift to my generation. It was the bridge from the generation that could get a job right out of college covering sports by change and the generation that had to hustle their way on television to get that same opportunity.  It allowed us access even at a far to the sports writers we wanted to be. To be introduced to new talent and follow their journey. Read their pieces on whatever platform they were on and study a new unique style of writing. It was graduate school before I even realized I could get an education at that high of a level.  And like many, this show was also a place I could go when I felt the most lost at the darkest time in my life. In college, homesick and heartbroken I could flip my computer open go to the watch tab on espn.com and for an hour a day get a small piece of the home that I missed thanks to Around the Horn and Pardon the Interruption. I could forget about my problems for an hour a day.  It was my true escape and the thing I look forward to more than anything else. And dream.

We can still dream and now it’s on us to continue to provide the light this show brought to the table. It’s on us to keep going around the horn daily on all the things that matter. We, both the media and fans of ATH, have to make the conversation smarter and elevate past the clutter of hot takes and clicks. God speed to everyone involved and we are all now lesser that this show is a part of history instead of talking about it. My childhood is officially over.  

 

 

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