When people ask where I’m from, I often joke I have five hometowns. Born in Cleveland, OH, I spent the majority of my childhood moving around, spending time in Houston, Phoenix, Tucson and Los Angeles.
Most people assume military, but our family dealt with medical issues that required us to relocate to top doctors around the country to support one of my siblings.
This exposed me early on to diverse groups of people, where I learned to value curiosity and perspective. Sports and comedy quickly became my outlet for meeting people where they’re at and building a sense of self.
I continue to grow up a tortured Cleveland Browns fan, deliriously talking myself into new quarterbacks and coaches every year. Each season I’m reminded of walking my 90-year-old Sitto (Arabic for grandma) through the concourse at Cleveland Browns Stadium and the joy I felt watching her scream louder than Browns fans half her age.
When it came time to choose a major at Baldwin Wallace University, I thought back to these types of memories and the countless years I spent hooping in the driveway with my brother. So, I settled on sport management.
I needed an elective my first semester, so I took Intro to Criminal Justice, largely because I enjoyed watching “Criminal Minds” with my mom. Through a project focused on America’s “war on drugs,” I began to learn more about how systems work in our country and took an interest in civil rights work.
As this passion grew, so did my enthusiasm for sports, particularly basketball. I spent the next four years with one foot in the sport management building and the other in sociology, hoping one day I’d be able to combine these two worlds into a career that brought me the same joy I found through sports with Sitto as a kid.
To my surprise, I landed a job out of college with United Talent Agency where I supported talent agents and clients in finding social impact initiatives (e.g., food security, criminal justice) that align with their passions.
While with UTA, I received an opportunity to work with my hometown Cleveland Cavaliers to develop their social justice pillar. While with the team, I collaborated with the NBA Social Justice Coalition on projects celebrating historic events like the 1967 Cleveland Summit and the team’s 2024 Black Heritage Celebration (BHC).
For BHC, I wrote a script for the first time (something that wasn’t a typical responsibility), getting to work with direct descendants of legends like Jesse Owens, Larry Doby and Marion Motley. Sorting through old highlights and having conversations about their impact breaking racial barriers across the “Big Four” sports leagues sparked a newfound passion in storytelling.
I felt like I was at a crossroads. While my job with the Cavs definitely had an impact on communities in the city, it was heavy event planning. I needed more creative freedom.
The journey for grad school started with a simple “Top journalism programs in the country” Google search. My brother had just moved to Phoenix to start as a school counselor and dad always talked about “the great Walter Cronkite,” so ASU seemed like a good place to start.
Before moving 2,000 miles away, I promised myself to always keep my “why” at the center of everything, so I wrote the following on a note card that remains in my backpack:
• Career goal: Produce digital content celebrating basketball culture (e.g., NBA or SLAM)
• “Pursue excellence and wisdom with grace and ease”
The latter is a quote from the great mindfulness coach George Mumford, who worked with Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant.
This class matters to me, because of the power and importance it is to develop commentary that is true to oneself and their beliefs. Identifying what those beliefs are is difficult, largely because we are growing as human beings every day.
Who I was five years ago is different than who I am now, and I can’t wait to keep seeing how stories can be outlet for reminding myself and classmates that we belong to each other.
