After nearly eight years, whereby six of those was spent updating TalkBasket on a day-to-day basis alongside my job as a freelance sports journalist, my time in both fields is coming to an end.
I have accepted a job operating away from my speciality, which is sports, including basketball and am going into healthcare, where I will be working in public relations at Western Sussex Hospitals, which is close to home (a 10 minute drive, to be exact). I officially begin my role on July 9 and at this moment; I am currently enjoying time off before I start my new post. So I get to watch the FIBA World Cup qualifiers as a fan, especially Great Britain’s two games against Estonia and Israel.
Despite the new job though, I’m not walking away from the sports side of things entirely. I will still be covering Worthing Thunder basketball club for my local newspapers and I will still be calling Surrey Scorchers’ home games in the British Basketball League for LiveBasketball.tv this upcoming season.
So to the British basketball contingent: You haven’t totally got rid of me yet.
The main reason for this move is simple, though difficult to do, as I love what I did previously. With a family now to support and me wanting to devote more attention to, having multiple clients and working near 70-hour weeks were beginning to take its toll on me. Don’t get me wrong, I loved what I did, but the one thing I want is to enjoy time with my family.
And with this new role, I’m still involved within the media industry, I’m close to home, it’s something I’m incredibly passionate about and I get to work less hours, meaning I get more time with my family.
I would like to thank Vilius and Arkadios for all their help over the years, to the numerous people that have helped TalkBasket ticking, to Ksenia Manina for helping me out during the FIBA World Cup and EuroLeague Final Four in Berlin and especially to Yiannis Bouranis, who takes on a more involved role with this site now.
Over the years I have been to many wonderful basketball events across the globe and met some fantastic people who provide you with excellent coverage of our great sport. Thanks and all the best to Rob Scott and Sam Meyerkopf at EuroLeague Adventures, possibly the best EuroLeague podcast out there right now. Emmet Ryan’s (via Os Davis) Ball in Europe blog, Emiliano Carchia and the Sportando family, the hard working people at Eurohoops.net. whom admittedly I don’t personally know any of but provide great European hoops coverage.
The friendly gang at FIBA, David Hein, Jeff Taylor, Simon Wilkinson, Sakis Kontos, Jared, Goranka and anyone else I’m forgetting. Ed Scott, Diego, Francesca and everyone at EuroLeague Basketball and not forgetting Tom Marchesi, Kat and everyone at the NBA’s EMEA offices.
Anyone I forgot, apologies – as there was simply too many to name – but thank you all for many wonderful memories. This was more than just a job and I will miss it.
I’m out. * mic drop *
