Sunshine, Soccer and Deadlines
By Ben Leeds / Tampa, Florida
Ten days after walking off the stage as a graduate of Marist University in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., I stepped onto a plane, taking me to a new city and state, a new world for that matter.
Three weeks before graduating, I had received a formal offer from the United Soccer League (USL), North America’s largest professional soccer organization, to be a digital content specialist at the league's office in Tampa, and to write and edit articles for its websites.
I know I’m one of the lucky ones. Entry-level journalism jobs, especially ones in sports, are increasingly difficult to find by recent college graduates.
During Marist’s senior week, filled with festivities leading up to graduation day, when people asked me when I would start my new position in Tampa, I watched them raise their eyebrows when they heard that my flight to Florida was on the following Monday. I tried not to think about it much, focusing instead on enjoying the fleeting time with the people who had made my college experience so special.
The goodbyes were hard. There were so many, so fast. While many college students can relate, the element of moving a thousand miles away put things more into perspective for me. When saying farewell to my closest friends, ones I knew I’d stay in touch with, it was sad to not know when I might see them next. For other friends, it dawned on me that I truly had no idea whether I’d ever see them again.
I blinked, then all of a sudden, I was peering out the window as my flight headed south to Tampa International Airport. With uninterrupted time to myself for the first time in what felt like forever, I scrolled through my iPhone, looking at photos from the previous month, trying to remember the portion of my life that I was leaving behind.
Starting from Scratch
There’s no “welcome week” in the real world. Obviously, I didn’t expect there to be, but it was hard to grasp the fact that I was just… there. One of the millions of adults in the country who support themselves with a full-time job.
I’m a sports fan at my core, but I never truly got into soccer at any level of fandom beyond casual. I played the sport from age four to six, and after my lengthy career in the sport, I all but abandoned it.
Yes, I watched the World Cup when it rolled around and vaguely knew some of the big names playing in Europe. But to be honest, I got most of my soccer knowledge from watching the show Ted Lasso, the TV comedy based on England’s Premier League and the second-tier English league, the EFL Championship.
I certainly knew nothing about the USL. I did research ahead of job interviews and upon getting my job offer just to familiarize myself with the many leagues that make up the company, but when I started, I still had a lot to learn.
Now, two-and-a-half months later, I think I’ve hit my stride. My co-workers have been very welcoming from the beginning, and I’ve settled into covering the USL and the game of soccer. I’m pretty confident in my skills as a sportswriter, so I knew that in time, I’d adapt to writing about a new sport.
I love writing about an undercovered league. It reminds me a lot of what I did in college. Marist University, and the conference in which it competed, received little to no media attention, and that presented me with an opportunity to build a unique brand for myself as a writer.
It’s similar at the USL. Though most teams across the country have local media who cover them, I still believe my voice has the potential to reach fans of the USL around the country, and I take pride in that.
And, of course, it’s more fun to be a writer who is being paid to cover sports. I loved my job as a sportswriter and editor for my school’s publications, but the unpaid work often felt grueling, with little tangible reward, especially given how small our staffs were.
There are still so many people at my company I haven’t met yet, like the professionals in the operations and broadcast departments. It’s interesting being a small part of a much bigger equation; as one of just a handful of staff writers, it makes my responsibilities feel large, even in a big office.
Becoming a Floridian
I spent my first few weeks in Florida astonished by the weather. Every time I stepped outside, it felt like I was walking into a wall of heat. The humidity down here is no joke. But I experienced enough brutal winters along the Hudson River in Poughkeepsie that I’m okay trading bitterly cold winters for overly hot summers.
Florida, and Tampa itself, are not entirely new to me. My grandparents live about two and a half hours away in Bonita Springs, and I’ve visited them a few times with my family during the winter.
Additionally, I traveled to Tampa twice with my dad; once to cross off Tropicana Field, the home of the Tampa Bay Rays, from our bucket list of seeing all of the MLB parks, and the second time to see our favorite team, the New York Yankees, play at their spring training site.
But not once in any of my previous trips to the Sunshine State did I imagine myself living here. Though I loved the warm weather and Tampa’s modern, up-and-coming vibe, with beautiful areas like the Tampa Riverwalk along the Hillsborough River, I loved being from the Northeast even more.
Been there, done that
At school, I was used to being a big fish in a small pond. At Marist, a school with just over 5,000 undergraduate students, I ran the student-run sports reporting publication, Center Field, and also helped run the on-campus newspaper, The Marist Circle. Every time I walked to class, I’d see someone I knew – a close friend or someone I had met in passing, or anyone in between – and that was comforting.
Though everyone at my office has been welcoming and kind to me, and I enjoy going to work each day, it feels like something is missing. It’s as though everything I spent the previous years building for myself is somewhere else now. I’m back to square one.
I try to remind myself that I’ve been here before, and that I found my way out. It took me a while to settle in as a college student. Though I made friends with people during my first semester, I didn’t have anyone with whom I felt a genuine connection yet, and or much of a purpose at school. I had an interest in making a career out of my sports fandom, but I had no idea how.
Then I joined Center Field during my second semester. My passion for writing developed quickly, and I earned a position on the board for the upcoming school year. There. I had found my purpose.
I see similarities between the way I felt then and the way I feel now, starting the rest of my life. Once I leave work, socially, my day ends. I go for a run, and I don’t speak to anyone. I go to the movies by myself, and I don’t speak to anyone – besides ordering popcorn.
It’s allowed me to focus on making a strong first impression at work and giving my career everything I have. Naturally, I’m spent by the time I get home. It’s nice to relax, lie on my couch and watch a movie or show, and not have to coordinate plans with friends or overthink a text message from a girl I’m interested in seeing.
I guess that this is my second semester, this time in the work world. I’ve got my nose to the grindstone, learning my craft, and wondering what this semester will bring.
Ben Leeds, a Trumbull, Connecticut native, lives in Tampa, Florida, where he works for the United Soccer League (USL) as a digital content specialist. He graduated from Marist University in Poughkeepsie, where he studied communications and was the editor-in-chief for Center Field, Marist’s student-run online sports reporting publication, and a managing editor of the campus newspaper, the Marist Circle. Previously, Ben interned at the Highlands Current, reporting on news in the Beacon, New York, area and with Forever Blueshirts, a website covering the New York Rangers.
I know that I’m a bit prejudice but reading Ben’s article has really opened my eyes to how he is doing. So proud of his accomplishments