Macafee

Since I was young, I’ve been taught to chase my dreams. So, that’s what I’ve always done.

It led me to change my major from exercise science to journalism at Slippery Rock University. It led me to move across the country to Arizona to pursue my first job in the field while making just enough money to keep a roof over my head. Then, it led me to Arizona State University, where I obtained my master’s degree in sports journalism.

I never stopped dreaming.

At every stop in my journalism career, I’ve always had the goal of covering professional sports in the back of my head. Whether that was baseball, football, soccer or basketball, that’s what my eye has always been set on. While it was further out of sight at some points of my career than others, I always knew that all I needed was an opportunity.

Well, that opportunity begins Monday.

This past week was my last week as editor of the Tribune Chronicle and The Vindicator newspapers. I will start living my dream next week as I will be covering the Pittsburgh Steelers for a company in Pittsburgh.

When I was a kid, I always loved watching SportsCenter as Chris Berman delivered one animated line after another or as Stuart Scott coined an interesting phrase like “as cool as the other side of the pillow.” That’s what I looked forward to every day. But as I got older, I found more joy in the written word and telling stories. That’s where my dream developed and now it’s coming true.

However, I couldn’t be more thankful for my time at the Tribune Chronicle and The Vindicator. It seemed like just yesterday, I was sitting across from former editor Brenda Linert for my interview. A few weeks later, I was off and running.

In fact, just a few days ago, I received a notification that it was my third anniversary at the newspaper and I couldn’t help but think how fast that time has gone by.

It started with a quick transition in sports as we put together the annual football booklets and prepared ourselves for the first high school sports season in the Mahoning Valley. I finally came up for air the following June.

Over my 2 1/2 years in the sports department, my staff and I got to tell several amazing stories. From Canfield and South Range winning state titles in football during the same year, to Garfield’s Keegan Sell and Hunter Andel standing atop the podium to conclude the wrestling state tournament at Ohio State’s Schottenstein Center. There was also Austintown Fitch’s state title run in softball last year, before they turned around and did it again this year, and a myriad of other individual titles along the way.

Cardinal Mooney’s Rocco Turner captured a title in golf, Maplewood’s Caleigh Richards won a plethora of titles in both cross country and track over the past three seasons and we can’t forget about the dominance of Canfield’s Nick Plant in the 800 meter or the 4×100 relay legacy that the athletes at Valley Christian built.

However, several stories didn’t include state titles. One story I took an immense amount of pride in was the series I got to do last summer on the history of football in the Warren area. The rivalry between Western Reserve and Warren G. Harding was legendary, the 1990 state championship after the two rivals merged was something out of a storybook and the legacy of the players that went on to play at the collegiate and professional level created a historical culture.

I also always thought our Youngstown State University coverage was unmatched as Joel Whetzel did a great job before replacing me as sports editor. Along with his game coverage, his enterprise-type stories went in-depth with players and coaching staffs to give our readers great insight into how each program ticked. Neel Madhavan has continued to do the same with the YSU beat.

The moral of the story is, my time here in the Mahoning Valley has been nothing short of amazing. From the stories we got to tell to the people that I have gotten to work alongside every day.

But, now it’s time to go accomplish something I’ve been waiting a lifetime for. So, to our readers in the Mahoning Valley, thank you! It’s been fun.

editor@tribtoday.com