1th article at the Independent

How determined are you to do what you love: dream chasing

CHRIS DRUMMOND

cdrummond@marshallindependent.com In just a matter of three days, two extremely talented quarterbacks in the National Football League will lead their teams into the Super Bowl having the opportunity to call themselves a champion. The two quarterbacks are Joe Burrow of the Cincinnati Bengals and Matthew Stafford of the Los Angeles Rams. Both have went through adversity professionally and personally to get to this point of their lives and one of them will complete a dream of winning the Super Bowl, the other will still be chasing it.

Determination is a huge factor in accomplishing anything in life, but you must also go through everything in between from the start. For those two men it’s winning a trophy that bares the last name of legendary Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi; however, for me it was writing stories like this explaining my in between from the start. It all started at an Atlanta Falcons career fair. Dressed to the nines with more than over 35 resumes to pass out to various organizations wanting a job in this industry, I was one of many students who shared those same sentiments and just wanted to leave an impression at the fair. After a couple of months, I got a call to do an unpaid internship with the Knoxville Ice Bears as a GameDay operations associate. My excitement couldn’t be contained as I was going to work with a sports team, however that was only the beginning. I was grateful for the opportunity but didn’t have a car and had never been to Tennessee in my life. I researched and found a company called Megabus, which I would use to travel back and forth for the next three months until the season ended. The trip from Atlanta to Knoxville was four hours each way, $12.50 round trip, and learning my way around a new city was amazing. I would pay for my own hotel and each weekend the Ice Bears had one or two games, solidifying that I was all in on working with a professional team. Saving money and budgeting was important for me to do this because it was a dream of mine to be associated with sports and with the support/help from my family, this was made possible. I knew what it would take to chase a dream but after working this internship, I knew then I wouldn’t want to pursue a position as a GameDay operations associate but learned a lot going through the experience. When the season ended, I wanted to pursue sports writing as another passion. I joined my school’s magazine, writing articles and getting them published. I emailed 30 different publications inside of Atlanta, hoping for an opportunity to exhibit and learn information from my writing skills. From that, my sports editor took a chance on me and to this day I continue to work on my craft which has led me here to the Marshall Independent. Whether you’re Burrow, whose had a gruesome leg injury, replaced at his quarterback position at Ohio State to winning the Heisman trophy, becoming a college football national champion and playing in his first Super Bowl or whether you’re Stafford, being winless in the playoffs up until this year as a 13-year veteran, having a wife go through brain surgery to also be playing in your first Super Bowl, adversity hits us all in different ways but how you handle it shapes the character of who you’ll become. Dreams without action is nothing more than a hopeful wish. To chase dreams, one must go through the in between, furthermore be able to endure all of the good, bad, and ugly that comes with it. Starting out is the honeymoon phase but what you’ll be questioning is how determined are you to do what you love? The what you love part will vary for everyone, but the determination won’t. Always chase your dreams.