I often think back to October 2023. I was an assistant Sports editor at the Daily Bruin, fact-checking a UCLA football story — Pac-12 days. Oh, the days. Going through those 1,000 words took hours, undone by the fact that "kick return" and "sack" may well have been written in hieroglyphics. I sent the story off and immediately asked our Sports editor for a meeting to "kinda teach me football" — a generous way of saying I was utterly confused.

I didn't grow up with the sport. Heck, I grew up some 7,000 miles away and some hundred sports removed. I finally spoke football by way of EA Sports, obsessive rewinds and bluffing my way through Super Bowl watch parties.

Fast forward two years. Football runs my brain. What once needed subtitles is automatic. The steep learning curve was exactly the point. After appearing a disadvantage, not growing up with the sport is now my biggest asset. It's why I ask different questions and chase different stories. College football is an objectively wild ecosystem, and you see it best if you didn't grow up in it. 

Now my biggest obsession, college football rewired my approach to reporting. The Athletic gives me the room — and the brains around me — to convert those ideas.