My name is Jason Goldie. I was born and raised in Palo Alto, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. I was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) at 2 years and 2 months old. I fell in love with sports at a young age. My favorite sports are baseball and football. Naturally, I rooted for local teams such as Stanford, the 49ers and the Giants. I also love skiing, traveling, animals, and going to sporting events. I lived in Palo Alto all my life until I went off to college at Arizona State University.
My journey in sports journalism began when I attended my friends’ Little League games. I eventually learned to keep score of baseball games. I was also fascinated with public address announcing and play-by-play. My love for broadcasting really took off when I did the morning announcements in middle school and realized I was great at it. That continued into high school, which is also when I started PA announcing. I started in wrestling and baseball before the athletic director, who was also the head football coach, asked me to announce football. I loved PA announcing, which translated into my play-by-play career.
There wasn’t one event that pushed me into journalism, but I was obsessed with baseball and scorekeeping, which is what kicked everything off. I enjoy listening to play-by-play commentators calling games, which is what made me want to pursue it. Some of my favorite things about broadcasting are being in front of the camera, reading the teleprompter, and the excitement of live action whether it’s on the news or at the game. It makes me feel like this is what I’m supposed to do.
Throughout my junior and senior years of high school, I researched the best sports journalism schools in the country that also had the best services for students with disabilities like ASD. I ended up applying to 12 schools, including Arizona State, Hofstra and Arizona. I made my decision to attend Arizona State and the Cronkite School after I visited Hofstra and was left disappointed and almost freezing to death. Then, after 18 years of living in the Bay Area, I uprooted my life to the Valley of the Sun.
I’m taking this class because I want to get better at commentary and forming opinions. I’m a very linear thinker, and play-by-play has been my forte in college so far. Because of my ASD, I see the world differently, and I want to share it.
I feel like commentary is very important because as an autistic journalist, I want to share my voice and my point of view. 20 percent of the population is neurodiverse, but we are not represented much in journalism. I want to be an advocate and an inspiration for other neurodiverse people watching the news, and I want to develop a voice for that. I believe neurodiverse people should be able to hear that others think like them and that it’s important that we are represented in the news. I also want to encourage neurodiverse kids to pursue their dreams.
