When did you realize sports journalism was the career you were interested in?\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
As a kid, I actually wanted to be the next great play-by-play broadcaster. I used to turn off the audio on my Madden video games and do my own commentary. I was fortunate enough to do that in high school. A local station carried area high school games, and I provided play-by-play and color commentary. So, breaking into sports broadcasting was my goal when I enrolled at Rowan College at Burlington County (RCBC), where I went before transferring to Monmouth.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That all changed during my second semester at RCBC. I was in a class with other communications majors and the professor asked us what, specifically, we wanted to do within our major. I told him play-by-play broadcaster and he said, \u201cYou better learn to write.\u201d I had no idea what he meant, so I checked with him after class. He challenged me to find a broadcaster who didn\u2019t have a background in writing. I couldn\u2019t. The next day I signed up for a journalism class and my career took off from there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Were there any Monmouth professors who helped you along the way?\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
For broadcasting, Aaron Furgason [\u201992], Matt Harmon [\u201996, \u201904M], and the late Chris Cavallaro [\u201995] all worked with me on my delivery in radio, which helped me immensely when my career then went to TV.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The professor who undeniably I owe so much of my career to, though, is John Morano.\u00a0I cannot put into words how much he meant to me and helped me. I was already working in the field when I took two of his classes. What I appreciated so much about him was that he didn\u2019t look at me and say, \u201cOh, you\u2019re good for your class. Keep grinding.\u201d He tried everything he could to make me better. I used to take the stories I wrote for the Ledger or Journal Inquirer to him during his office hours. We would tear them apart, word by word, paragraph by paragraph, to make them better.\u00a0After I graduated, the Star-Ledger hired me as their Jets beat writer. I got that job at 23-years old and was the youngest person in the media room by 10-plus years. I got such a leg up on my competition in large part because of the time Professor Morano invested in helping me get better.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What drew you to covering the NFL specifically?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
I was obsessed<\/em> with football growing up. It was religion in my house. My mom used to have a sign hanging in our kitchen that read, \u201cWe interrupt this family for football season.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n I played football when I was a kid and realized then that if there were people on my youth league who were bigger, stronger, and faster, I probably wasn\u2019t making it to the NFL. I saw broadcasting\u2014and eventually writing\u2014as a chance to make a career out of the game I loved as a kid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You broke your first national news story\u2014Antonio Cromartie signing with the Jets\u2014in 2015 while you were still at Monmouth. How\u2019d you manage that scoop?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n Jordan Raanan, who\u2019s now the Giants beat writer for ESPN, was (and still is) one of my biggest mentors in this field. I met him while I was at Monmouth, and one of the first things I asked him was, \u201cHow do you get a source?\u201d He explained that some are built over time (mostly on the team side), but you can start developing sources by reaching out to NFL agents. Jordan gave me this big PDF listing every registered agent and a contact number for each, and told me to call every one of them, introduce myself, and then keep in touch with them. Over time, those relationships could prove helpful, he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So, I took two days off from class and spent all day calling people on the list (there were hundreds of them). Some hung up on me; some didn\u2019t answer; some laughed me off the phone when they heard, \u201cConnor Hughes, about.com.\u201d But several of them were good people who I\u2019m still close with. One of those agents was Ben Dogra. We talked, and I told him I\u2019d keep in touch. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In the NFL, a major offseason event is free agency, when players whose contracts have expired sign with other teams. I viewed that as my No. 1 spot to break something. Antonio Cromartie was a player many people believed had a chance to return to the Jets; he had played the previous year with the Cardinals. His agent was Ben Dogra. <\/p>\n\n\n\n On the first morning of free agency, I got up at 5 a.m. and sent text messages to every agent I\u2019d spoken with earlier, including Ben. He said I was the first reporter to call him that morning, so I had 15 minutes off the record with him to ask whatever I needed. I called and we chatted. Eventually, we got to the subject of Cromartie. Ben said he believed he\u2019d be signing with the Jets and told me to check in with him every couple of hours because it could happen quickly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So, I did. I kept texting, and he kept saying nothing new. Eventually, he called me. That offseason the Jets were also interested in Darrelle Revis. Ben was trying to explain to me why Cromartie was a better fit because of his experience. He then asked me, \u201cHow old are you?\u201d I think he was trying to get to how I\u2019m more experienced than people younger than me. I said, \u201cI\u2019m 21, Ben.\u201d He responded, \u201cYou had the b–ls to call me at 21? You know what? I like you. This break is yours when it happens. Keep your phone on you.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n The next two days I had my phone on me 24\/7 waiting for the text. I\u2019m not sure what it\u2019s like in school now, but we couldn\u2019t text or have ours out in class. I had to go to every one of my professors and explain my current situation. Most of them looked at me like I was nuts but told me I could. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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