I love sports.

Sometimes it’s as simple as that. Sports have been my main outlet since I was about 6 or 7 years old (before that it was the weather and dinosaurs, which are still cool). It was around then that I began to play football, basketball and golf, the three sports that I loved the most.

As I got older, though, football went away. I was better at golf and didn’t want to do both. But I still missed it. I still watched it every Saturday, living and dying by every touchdown scored and given up by Nebraska — some things never change.

Once I hit middle school I realized that I was way better at the English classes than I was at, say, pre-algebra. I started writing and fell in love with it. I fell in love with writing about sports in particular. I wanted to go into journalism, and I wanted to tell stories and cover the events and people I’d been watching since I was in elementary school.

At first, I went to a small school in Nebraska to play college golf and study journalism. I hated it there. It just wasn’t a good fit. I emailed then editor-in-chief Emily Barske, spoke on the phone to then-sports editor Brian Mozey about joining the Daily, and transferred over. I couldn’t be happier with my decision.

I write about sports because they’re my first love. Sports are what I grew up on. There’s something magical about them, despite all of the institutional issues within them — particularly at the collegiate level — that just captures my attention. I love to nerd out over statistics, team names, players and so on.

Finally, I write because it’s what I love to do.