Lets Rip The Old Band Aid Off Once And For All
So lets start from the top. As I think everyone here knows I was born and raised in Newton Massachusetts. Lived there for the first 18 years of my life before I went to the University of Wisconsin. My family is not originally from the area and I have family all over the country including Chicago. As a kid I rooted for the Boston teams, its how I grew to hate the Packers after the Super Bowl in 96. I also would visit my family in Chicago once a year and always considered the Chicago teams my second teams (lame move but it was the reality). I was enamored with Michael Jordan, my uncle had season tickets throughout the entire 90's and worked in Real Estate downtown and through his business dealings became friends with Phil Jackson which only increased my childhood wonderment with Chicago and how cool it was that he had those connections. When I went to college I kept rooting for Boston teams but in 2007 when I graduated I moved down to Chicago and fell in love with the city. I wasnt exactly a cool kid growing up or in High School, I had friends, I played sports, I did plays (TheaterCat) but it was in College and Chicago where I finally found friends and a sense of a place where I belonged. Getting my first apartment in Lakeview at 22 was the best. Lived in Wrigleyville (highly recommend if you want to go to 20+ Cubs games a year like I did back in 2009), Lincoln Park and Gold Coast during that stretch and it became a real home. My first years out of college living in Chicago in my early 20's was the happiest Id ever been in my life and I knew that no matter where my life may take me I wanted to live in Chicago the rest of my life, raise a family, and call it home.
Flash forward a couple of years and like most guys in my shoes they started asking themselves if the current job theyre at is the one they want to do for the rest of their life. A lot of you reading this right now have probably gone through this exact same feeling and experience. I would sit in my car at lunch break and scroll the internet and listen to local Chicago radio and think I could do something like that. It was also around this time that I became aware of Barstool. How? Well as many of you know I like to gamble, a lot, a lot a lot. Half of the lunch breaks I took were doubled as me sitting at the Western Union by Chicago and Orleans sending cash wire transfers to the Bahamas so I could fund my sportsbook.com account. My center console in the Avalon (RIP) was full of receipts on those transfers and I don't think I ever actually took money out of my account, only funding it to a fake Bahamian name as the Western Union employees shook their heads in disgust, rightfully so. Anyone who's been gambling for a long time remembers this exact experience and they also remember a site called Covers.com. Covers.com was a gambling forum where people would share their gambling picks every night and talk games. You'd find a hot handicapper and tail them until the wheels fell off. Sidenote, If anyone can remind me of the guy who would post his picks in different colors depending on the team colors I can't think of it right now but that dude absolutely rocked and I would tail him religiously. I bring up Covers because that's where I was first introduced to Dave and Barstool. He posted his mortal locks for an NFL card, I tailed them (they lost obviously) and I then started reading Barstool and was instantly hooked on the funny videos, irreverent humor, random funny moments during a sports game and stupid internet stuff. Besides Collegehumor.com there was really no website online that was posting funny things like that on a daily basis.
So that kind of sets the stage for where I was. Living in Chicago, happy as could be but wondering if there was something else out there for me. And that's when I started blogging. When I started I knew that Dave was covering Boston, Kevin/Keith New York and no one was in Chicago. So I threw myself into Chicago sports. I fully adopted those teams, learned their history, which I had known a decent amount from my Uncle, and began rooting for all of them. As I did that my love for Boston sports began to fade. If I was going to root for the Chicago teams I had to shut off rooting even a little bit for Boston teams anymore. By the way maybe the worst trade of all time rooting for Tom Brady to rooting for the Chicago Bears. Dave initially offered me the job in 2010 but the timing wasn't right for me personally. I thought it was too risky and didn't think I was good enough to do it at that time. So for the next 2 years I kept blogging and working on it and getting better.
In 2012 Dave announced he was opening Barstool Chicago with a guy named Neil, shout out Neil, genuinely a great fucking dude. Neil, like me, lived in Chicago but wasn't originally from here and when he started he got skewered for that. He never had a fair shot and it sucked for him beyond belief because he was just trying to do his job to the best of his ability. I took a part time role blogging for Barstool and when it wasn't working out for Neil, Dave offered me the full time job again. Dave knew my background and we talked about what the best plan of attack was for my start. We agreed the best course of action was to not mention my childhood or that I used to root for Boston teams and to just throw everything I had into Chicago, covering their teams, everything going on in the city and blogging about everything on the internet etc.
Looking back on this moment it's my biggest regret that consumed me for many years. Why didn't I just explain myself from the jump? I think my talent would've shown through regardless where I grew up. But the best thing for Barstool was for me to throw myself 100 percent into the job and work my ass off to make Barstool Chicago work. And that's exactly what I did. Anyone who knows me from 13 years ago knows I worked my ass off. I became obsessed with Chicago sports, I became obsessed with blogging, I became obsessed with my job and I worked really really hard at it. I also knew that I couldn't hold any of my old allegiances because it would be even more unfair to the audience if I did that. I cold turkey stopped rooting for any Boston teams. Super Bowls meant absolutely nothing to me, I basically shut off that entire part of my life and rooted my dick off for all things Chicago as much as they sucked at basically everything.
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As the years passed by Barstool kept growing, I kept working and my past snowballed into something I would actively avoid. I omitted it all from my mind and content, because I wanted people to know I genuinely cared about the things I talked about and blogged about, which I did. I deeply cared when the Bears would lose to Aaron Rodgers, or when Derrick Rose didn't come back from his knee injuries or the Cubs started building something special. The double doink absolutely broke me into a million pieces because it was all I cared about. It was my job to cover the city and I took it very seriously. I threw myself all in and never looked back. People would bring it up to me online and I would DM them to please stop because I thought in my mind it would ruin me and my career. Thats so stupid looking back on it. I feel so much shame for avoiding it all costs. It was a molehill that I made into a mountain in my head. And I know at the end of the day its not like I was hiding a murder or crime or something horrific, its hiding that I switched teams, some people would care but most would still like the content I was producing and the fact that I was proudly representing the city I had grown to deeply love and the teams that I had 100 percent adopted.
Why I did this I still can't quite answer except for the fact that I was scared and acted irrationally. And in my head as long as I gave everything I had and rooted as hard as I could for Chicago teams it didn't matter. I also never thought I'd have millions of followers and a huge sports podcast. It started as making jokes on the internet and grew into something so much bigger. Barstool is a job but its also a life, and that's how I thought about it. My life is my job and vica versa, I would push myself to work harder than anyone and we'd take this company to the moon. But I was wrong to do it this way. I know that. But like I said it snowballed on me and the company kept growing and growing and soon it wasn't just me and Kevin, Keith and Dave but we had other employees and I became someone people depended on. The pressure grew every year for me to keep my work going and keep growing the brand.
So here we are today and I guess I'm just trying to move forward. I fucked up (Jim Calhoun). I shouldn't have been ashamed and I shouldn't have hid my past. People will call me a phoney and fraud and I expect to eat a lot of shit for it. But I want people to know that I genuinely care, and I've genuinely cared about Chicago sports and Barstool and this City for the majority of my adult life. Ive watched virtually every Bears, Cubs, Bulls and Blackhawks (maybe not recently) game for the last 13+ years. Those are the only teams I root for now and that hasn't changed since I started at Barstool.
I'm expecting some people to hate my guts for this, which kills me inside because I'm soft when it comes to the internet and I let people's opinions of me impact me too much (still haven't learned effect/affect so I use the word impact instead old hockey trick).
But at the end of the day I know a lot of people have my back, and the decade plus of blogging/podcasting about everything including Chicago sports will speak for itself. And I appreciate everyone who will still ride with me. Throughout all of this it's been incredible to realize the support system I have. The 70 plus people in the Chicago office all have my back, and they know that deep down Im a good person trying to do my best for everyone. I say everyone because as much regret that I have I have to remind myself to look at the positives. Ive built an incredible office where I actively try to give people the shine they deserve and the life that I have. I think I've accomplished a lot of that and that feels incredible.
And I won't lie here, this has Probably been the worst Ive ever felt in my 13+ plus Barstool Sports career. I hate the feeling of letting people down and that's how I feel. Sidenote - If you're looking for a great diet I would recommend extreme stress, beating yourself up, feeling like shit and not wanting to eat food. For the first time in my life I'm on my way to a six pack (six pack for me is being able to see my penis, we're grading it on a curve).
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Ive rambled too long, Ive also lost the ability to type like I used to back in the day when we did 10 blogs a day every day. Ill leave you with a quote from another transplant who has become synonymous with this great city. "The past is for cowards and losers" -Mike Ditka. Actually let me revise that "The past is for cowards and losers but if you bring up mine Ill no longer run from it or feel ashamed, Bear Down" -Big Cat