My passion from the start.

Paxton Pomykal and Jesus Ferriera, two star teenagers who both grew up in Dallas, have taken the league by storm this season and have been a crucial part of this FC Dallas team. 

Trying to emulate my favorite ESPN writers, I wrote this in a “MLS Playoff Preview,” a story that appeared in the Lion Pride middle school newspaper.

Six years later, my fingers trembling as I clicked the link to a Zoom meeting, I asked my first question to Dan Hunt, FC Dallas President.

“What was your vision for developing the youth academy and growing players like Paxton and Jesus?”

I had the perfect source for a story about homegrown FC Dallas players: the man behind the best soccer academy in the country. After a journey that lasted six years across multiple publications, I could finally put this story to bed. 

At 5-years old, I’d run downstairs each morning to read the New York Post sports section so I could give my teacher a daily update on the Yankees. By 8, I had read so many stories about Clint Dempsey that I could tell you his life story. But reading stories about my favorite athletes wasn’t enough for me – I wanted to write the stories.

So, in the spring of fourth grade, I gathered three of my peers, and I launched the Lion Pride class newspaper.

By middle school, I had 15 classmates working with me, sometimes eagerly but in need of a push at times, yet we managed to write stories covering assemblies, investment trends, and our sports takes. 

Two years after publishing the final Lion Pride newspaper, the last of nearly 40 editions, I was named sports editor of the ReMarker — my high school newspaper. In a role I had been looking forward to having for years, I was eager to write stories that captured more than a box score.

Under my leadership, the sports section covered substance abuse, mental health and even college admissions – all through the lens of sports. These stories sparked conversations around campus in a way simple statistics cannot.

I found inspiration for one of these stories when I heard a couple of varsity football players had starring roles in the school play. These brawny linemen with Southern drawls didn’t exactly fit the conventional image of “theater kids.” So, I interviewed them about facing these juxtaposing stereotypes and invisible boundaries.

As I began to think about my last year on the ReMarker staff, a unique opportunity was presented to the rising seniors: the first-ever digital editor of the journalism program. 

This individual would build a website that could provide more timely insight into student life through podcasts featuring influential figures and debates between students, video content such as documentaries, and further coverage from guest speakers immediately after visits to our campus.

While there were many vying for the job, I knew my experiences as a journalist and entrepreneur made me the perfect person for the role. So did my adviser.

The ReMarker has covered topics ranging from consent to LGBTQ+ rights to abortion. The publication has won countless national awards, including a record 20 consecutive CSPA Gold Crowns and 14 NSPA Pacemakers. 

As impressive as the publication was, I wanted to look ahead to the future.

As the world changes, we must change with it. While there is nothing like flipping through the pages of a print newspaper, and there is always a place for it, I brought a new dimension to the school’s journalism program: a website. My mission was to allow our audience — those here on campus and those across the globe — to consume information in real time.

Convincing middle schoolers to write stories and attend meetings for a publication that didn’t exist yet wasn’t easy. The same goes for convincing an entire journalism staff and school administration to believe in a website that didn’t yet have a domain name. 

Staying up past my bedtime to edit a grammatical disaster of a middle school assembly review wasn’t the glamorous part of my job. And missing spirit parties to upload football statistics to the website right after a game isn’t thrilling. 

But these journalistic start-ups have taught me not to fear the unknown. Instead of thinking about everything that could go wrong, I now dream about everything that will go right. 

I have learned to apply this philosophy in my other entrepreneurial endeavors as well as my daily life. 

Could this turn out to be a waste of time? Possibly.

But it could also turn into something amazing.