Colin Gay: One quick story before I leave Hometown Life – Hometown Life
After all the stories you all have told me over the past two years, I thought I would tell you one of mine.
I didn’t know what the hell I was doing.
It was early August 2019. I was driving on West Park Drive between Walled Lake and Novi heading to my third apartment tour of the day. One week prior, I had just accepted my first sports reporter job out of college: to cover high school athletics in the northern and western suburbs of Detroit.
I was young and wide-eyed. I was in an area where I had no family, no friends. I had no knowledge of the area, no idea who the good teams were, who the top athletes were. And in the next week, I was expected to settle down and help take over a sports section that had been defined by distinct voices for decades.
I felt I was immediately expected to know everything, to be the top sports voice from the get go; a weight I loaded on myself even before I stepped foot in the paper’s office.
Anxiety and pressure began to build, quickening my breathing. I continued to drive feeling panicked, getting closer to my reality.
My future was here. I was scared.
OK, this is a downer of a goodbye column so far, I know. But this is where I started.
As I reflect on my two years with Hometown Life, all I can say is that it got better.
From my first ever football practice at North Farmington, I was off, traveling in my trusty Toyota Camry with a Texas license plate from Livonia to Canton, from Birmingham to Wayne, from Novi to South Lyon; following teams to Detroit, East Lansing, Battle Creek and Kalamazoo.
I met all sorts of coaches and players, learning about sports I was not familiar with, gaining their trust to tell their stories, giving people an idea of what it was like to be and to lead athletes.
I was never an athlete myself. I was that kid in the nosebleeds of Houston Astros games — yes, those Houston Astros — soaking in every aspect of the game: the highest of highs and the true lowest of lows. I left many a game feeling heartbroken, with my parents and brother knowing not to talk to me after a loss.
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If I felt like that from the stands, I couldn’t imagine what those athletes on the field must have felt.
Those realities came clear to me in the most intimate way in the past two years: approaching coaches and players after hoisting a state title trophy, approaching them after a playoff loss, watching the strength of a student or a coach as he or she gave me answers fighting through tears.
For those moments of bliss to those moments of sorrow, I thank you. I thank you for allowing me to write down what led up to that point, asking what went through your head and what the moment means to you.
These moments furthered my relationship with you, the Hometown Life community.
I leave Hometown Life thankful: for you — the coaches, the players, the parents, the athletic directors, the school administrators — for my coworkers and for local journalism.
I leave Hometown Life feeling I have left it in a good place for its next chapter.
And while I’m super excited for what’s next, that same anxiety is returning. The pressure to perform, that weight of expectation that I put on myself is back.
I still feel I don’t know what the hell I’m doing at times. I’m still the same guy driving on West Park Drive between Walled Lake and Novi.
At least now I have a tangible example to look back on of what it looks like when I can step out of that space and do what I was hired to do: tell stories.
As always, thanks for reading.
Contact reporter Colin Gay on Twitter @ColinGay17.