It’s time to say goodbye

The world is a completely different place than it was six years ago.

Six years ago, two terms before the president, before the raging pandemic, before Jamal Murray was drafted, Nikola Jokić Nikola JokićAnd before the Nuggets had a clear direction as a franchise.

Six years ago, I was closing my first year at the University of South Carolina. At the age of 19, I have no clear direction for myself. I finally studied sports management at USC for four years and during that time I understood what I wanted to do in my life, but before sticking to my personal career goals, I was pretty reckless. I wanted to work in sports. I was an excellent soccer player when I was in high school. Before tearing the lips of the throwing shoulder, I was also an excellent baseball player. The injury deprived me of the ability to take college sports seriously, but that was all I knew. So I majored in sports management in one of the best college programs I found. I hope that the connections I have made there will lead to my future professional career. Like all other sports management majors at the time, I wanted to be the general manager of a professional sports team.

After all, the most important connection I made during my freshman year wasn’t about relationships with students, teachers, or industry professionals. You see, I’ve always been interested in basketball, and although I stopped playing in high school to focus on the other two sports. I’m also a Nuggets fan and spent a lot of time on the Denver Stiffs website between 2013 and 2015 reading everything written by Andrew Feinstein, Nate Timmons, Jeffrey Morton and Mike Olson.I finally created a Stiffs account and started commenting on articles by screen name It’s the son of law I was very smart and thought everything was right. In the meantime, I learned that while I was improving my writing and critical thinking skills, it definitely wasn’t, and along the way I became friends with Zack Mikash and Gordon Gross.

I went to college for sports management, but I kept the connection between fandom and the Nuggets, commented on the Nuggets on FanSided’s website called Hoop Habit, and eventually wrote cheaply. I didn’t think writing was more than a hobby until Zack contacted me about applying for writing to Denvers Stiffs. I attended a school in a completely different state, but I thought it would be fun to be around the fan base, so I accepted it.

For the next three years, I learned rope under the crew of Adam Mares and Stiffs. He became one of my best friends, as did Brendan Vokto and several other writers. We were a great team and enjoyed the growth and trajectory of Jokić, Murray, Gary Harris, Paul Millsap, and the Nuggets team as a whole.They almost reached the Western Conference Finals in May 2019, and I remember seeing the defeat of Triple Overtime Game 3. Portland Trail Blazers Until around 3 am Eastern Standard Time. Meanwhile, I grew up as a writer and started my own podcast. Nuggets numberAnd learned what I really wanted to cover Denver Nuggets Not only as a hobby, but as my career.

Then Adam approached me in the summer of 2019 about how he resigned from Denvers Stiffs. He advised me to take over the site manager on his behalf, and I sat on the floor. This was exactly what I wanted — paid to cover the local Nuggets — but I was 22 at the time and often the youngest in the room in all professional settings. was. I took on the job, but I had a lot of reservations. Zachary, Gordon, and Daniel Lewis were stuck to facilitate the transition, but for a while I was holding my head trying to put everything together.

The situation went pretty well for a while, but then it happened that no other site administrator needed to navigate before me. A pandemic that stopped all discussions about basketball for nearly four months.. I was completely profound about this, but with a good writing team and a group of friends who are as interested in maintaining the site as I am, we did it. When play resumed in August 2020, Nuggets fans around the world were rewarded with an incredible run in the Orlando bubble, I saw things very Bad at first In each playoff series, the Nuggets (especially Jokić and Murray) found a way to reach the Western Conference Finals.It was incredible, and We enjoyed it every minute..

Expectations are Next season is high in the skyAnd the condensed season put a heavy burden on our writing staff right after the bubble. They weathered it well, and although Denver Stiffs injured Jamal Murray seriously, he was rewarded with some excellent basketball and joker MVPs. Jokić has continued to perform incredibly this past season, but it was Michael Porter Jr. who was injured at the end of the season, and there is no end to whether Murray and Porter will return. Tug of war is a fan site. Still, the team went on and continued talking about the Denver Nuggets franchise, providing fans with a great exit to celebrate their fandom, just as I had for years.

It’s time to say goodbye.

Photo by Douglas P. Defelice / Getty Images

Starting today, I will resign as Site Manager for Denvers Stiffs. As the leader of this team, he overcame difficult situations and spent three years writing the site for a total of six years. These were some of the best years of my life, and I certainly downplayed how Denver Stiffs and the people who participated in it meant for my growth as a basketball writer and as a person. Is not … Thanks to Stiffs, I can pursue another opportunity. This will become apparent in the next few days.

Sure, I wouldn’t have had this opportunity without the help of an incredible group of people, especially those who put my site in the hands of competent people. Stepping up on my behalf is Deputy Site Manager and my friend Brandon Ewing. He is the first person I hired from outside and, as a knowledgeable and passionate Nuggets fan, believes in his ability to lead this team and make decisions on my behalf. Brandon has grown into a huge number of writers and leaders over the last three years, and I’m sure he will do a great job of leading Denvers Stiffs to a new frontier. He is already a coach, teacher and excellent leader.

Without my friends Gordon Gross, Jeff Morton, Zack Mikash, Daniel Lewis and Keila Osby, I wouldn’t have survived the first year. All five represent Stiffs’ “old guards”, and the site has stood up but continues to maintain its ideals, especially as the world and sporting landscapes have changed significantly in recent years.Without their guidance and connection to anything wasI would have been lost.

Without guidance from both before and after Adam Mares left Stiffs, there is no way to write this article today.He prepared me time He edited my subpar writing, helped me navigate the new frontier as an analyst, and taught me what it means to love basketball games. When managing the problem, I often asked myself, “What does Adam do?”, Which seems to have worked pretty well.

Jena Garcia has helped me change my view of basketball for the better. I never tried to “solve” basketball like a mathematical equation, but sometimes it was intimate. Jena taught that basketball is something she loves and enjoys through her own personal play and watching experience. She helped me look at the game aesthetically. It is important to never lose that perspective.

Gauge Bridgeford is like me. He started with FanSided and was taken to Denver Stiffs despite being out of state, finding a way to connect to teams and websites even when he was away.He grew up as a writer and basketball mind over the years, and his Friday movie The column continues to be one of the best content produced by Stiffs. There is no doubt that it will continue to be wonderful even after I leave.

Tommy Knowlton, Asher Levy and Peter Leensvaart represent the latest additions to the Stiffs team, and the combination of energy and passion they bring to the team helps our group to cover the difficult season of the Nuggets. I did. All three bring their own perspectives and skill sets to the table, and their own future is as bright as they want. The sky is the limit.

Eventually everything is over. In short, in order to fully understand the past, we need to learn lessons and apply that knowledge to a brighter future. One of the things I’ve learned over the six years I’ve covered Nuggets for Stiffs is nothing more important than being surrounded by loving and compassionate people. There are trials and hardships as is common in life, but people make those moments tolerable. The caretaker celebrates your success, overcomes your mistakes, and builds a culture worth believing. I think I fostered that culture here as a leader. And we know that the success of the site will be determined. By the same culture long after I left.

All the through lines I write and podcast around surround the Denver Nuggets and this culture. The Nuggets have long been a team that operates more like a family than a novel organization. The goal is certainly to win the championship, but not if you lose in the middle. Nuggets fans know that championships do not define success and failure.The how The important thing is why.. The Nuggets are a competitive basketball team, but more importantly, they are a group of people united to pursue their goals, and their hopes and aspirations shape them.They make the Nuggets who they are that is But I hope Denver Stiffs writers and readers remember it. It’s about people, not policy.

Let’s get on the train.

Denver Stiffs, thank you for changing my life.