One last love letter to college basketball

For as long as I can remember, even before I could write, I wanted to talk about college basketball. I did a fake broadcast for my own games, playing against myself in the driveway or the basement, calling play-by-play as I went and making sure to include TV timeouts and memorizing lineups so I could accurately call UMass or URI vs. Cornell or Texas or San Francisco. My brother and I invented a dice game as a way to simulate college hoops. I watched every single game that I could on TV, or switched to radio if we had to drive somewhere. I obsessed over the sport in every possible way.

When I got to college, I started writing about hoops with the same energy and zest as my elementary school days, when I’d write those laminated, plastic-bound books about a game between Marcus Camby and UMass vs. Rick Pitino’s Kentucky. The illustrations are horrible; I can assure you an illustrator would’ve really helped. But the writing is descriptive and fun, detailed accounts of big plays and player expressions. I began college thinking I’d go to law school and get into politics; I left the University of Pittsburgh hungry for a sports writing career — so ambitious that I missed some of the most fun parts about going away for college. I wanted to write a college basketball column for the New York Times or ESPN, and I was willing to write 1,000 words a night or work 16-hour days to get there.

Somewhere along the line, I lost that hunger.

I don’t know if it was the obsession with page views at the newspaper that eventually broke me, or the Twitter scrolling past 3 a.m. in hotel rooms with a 6 a.m. flight, or the obsessing over cryptic message board posts, or the tossing and turning with a clenched jaw night after night worrying that something was happening that I didn’t know about. I don’t know how we got to that point. But I do know that in January 2020, I broke down. I was three months into a European journey that I’d hoped would rekindle my love for sports writing after stepping away from The Athletic’s incredible college basketball staff, a gig that was by far the best year and pinnacle of my journalism career. I’d just conducted fantastic interviews in Zagreb with Drazen Petrovic’s family and biographers — the kind of quotes and anecdotes that a few years earlier might’ve kept me up all night because I wanted to write the story right then and there. And yet I found myself dry-heaving and choking back tears on the floor of our AirBnb, telling my wife I just didn’t want to write. Looking back now, that was the exact moment I knew I was done. Even though I’ve fought that feeling the past three years, I just can’t take this thing any further for my own sanity.

That’s all to say this will be my last newsletter. I started The Floyd Street Tribune in January 2021, and I’ve been so, so touched by the Louisville (and general college hoops) fans who read it. I never thought I’d get 50 subscribers to this thing, but I’m closing the proverbial doors two years later with more than 1,200. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you for your trust and your support. I have loved every minute of my almost-10 years in Louisville, and you are a big reason why. I absolutely love how much Louisville loves hoops.

I’m walking away from sports writing knowing I gave it my all, honored to have shared some incredible stories of personal triumph and deep sadness and everything in between. I tried my very best to shed light on the human beings who also happen to play basketball or football or baseball or soccer. Getting to know and tell the tales of people like Russ Smith, Donovan Mitchell, Damion Lee, Deng Adel, Quentin Snider, Terry Rozier, Anas Mahmoud, Dwayne Sutton and so many others in and around Louisville basketball is something I will always be proud of. They opened up to me and trusted me to tell stories about them and their lives. Their parents and friends and coaches shared their darkest moments and truest emotions. I won’t ever take that lightly or have anything other than a deep appreciation for that.

There was a moment during my walk through Freedom Hall with Denny Crum a few years ago — and I know I tell this story a lot. We’d been in the famous old arena for a while, and Denny needed to get to dinner before a Louisville game at the Yum Center. We walked toward the stairs that led to the parking lot, and Denny stopped right in the middle of the floor. The surface was just concrete — no basketball court or hoops set up. He turned around and pointed to a very specific spot and said, Right there is where Milt Wagner sat on his official visit.

When I’m old and gray and my son Theodore has kids of his own and whatever this world becomes is moving faster than I can keep up with, I hope I can proudly point to the places I explored with Hall of Famers like Denny, the arenas and the gyms where I hunched over my laptop, the parking lots where I pulled over to type stories on my phone. I can say I did those things out of deep love for college basketball and the people who make it so special. And I can say I did those things to the very best of my ability.

I’ll continue with my podcast. But you won’t be seeing my byline anymore. And I’m at peace with that. Finally.

Thanks so much for reading. See you around, Louisville.