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“15 years is a long time.”

That’s the phrase I have heard over and over again in recent weeks almost any time I share the news that I’m leaving Larry Brown Sports. It’s true — 15 years is a very long time, but it hasn’t felt that way here.

I often tell people that I’ve never had a real job. Let’s face it, most people do not view “sports blogger” as a full-time job, and there are few who have been able to call it one. I never thought I would, either.

My only real career goal growing up was to work in sports. I spent four years at UConn trying to find ways to make that happen. The only thing I ever heard from guidance counselors and the like was some variation of, “everyone wants to work in sports, so you better have a backup plan.” You want to be a sports journalist? Better just focus on the journalism part and hope the other stuff falls into place.

No one (myself included) ever thought it would be feasible to turn sitting at home writing about basically whatever you want into a career, but that somehow happened for me.

It was only fitting that I discovered Larry Brown Sports via a website called “Work in Sports.” I was finishing up my senior year in Storrs, and that seemed like as good a place as any to start. I figured maybe someone would give me an opportunity to write a few articles here and there to build a portfolio. Heck, maybe I could even put some stuff together that would impress ESPN.

It turns out I never needed the World Wide Leader, which is a concept my 18-year-old brain would have had zero chance of processing. What was essentially a part-time hobby very quickly turned into a full-blown career, even if everyone from my closest friends to the lady who filed my taxes was baffled by the nature of what very few would refer to as “a real job.”

“Larry Brown? You mean, like, the coach?”

“No, not him, a different Larry Brown.”

“But it’s sports?”

“Yeah, it’s sports.”

“Like Barstool?”

“Kind of, more like Barstool than like ESPN, but no, not really like Barstool.”

“And this is a full-time job?”

“Yes, it’s a full-time job”

“Damn, that’s awesome. Let me know if they’re hiring.”

To the general sports fan, the job sounds like such a dream that it seems like anyone can do it. Those of us who have done this (and only this) for the last 15-plus years know how far from the truth that is, but exchanges like that always helped put things into perspective.

15 years is a long time. It’s 15 more than I ever thought I’d be able to spend earning a living from something called “Larry Brown Sports,” and I couldn’t be more proud of what we’ve built. LBS is still around and still independently owned because we outworked the competition, and that hasn’t changed. I certainly don’t expect it to now that I’m moving onto a “real job,” either.

I may pop in for a guest appearance at some point down the road, but my days of sprinting to the computer to cover the blockbuster trade or the latest drama between Tom Brady and Gisele have, in all likelihood, come to an end. While I’m excited for the next chapter, bittersweet is the only way to describe it. I’ll miss almost everything that went along with being a full-time whatever-you-want-to-call-it.

Thank you.