A lot of what I have done for the Savannah Bananas has been intangible, which is the nature of a lot of media relations work, but my favorite project was also the most tangible — the media guides. I sent a different version out each week depending on the matchups, but overall, these guides are a reflection about the mass amounts of information I learned about the organization and what I aimed to communicate each week.
Each version is an accumulated group of information that I felt best served the people coming to cover us and I’m quite proud of the finished product.
2024 Banana Ball Media Guides - Google Drive
My favorite story I’ve ever written was also the hardest to write. As a sportwriter, it is hard to be prepared for the scope of covering a mass shooting, but that’s what I found myself faced with in April 2023 and this story of incredible strength and perseverance is one of the outcomes of that.
Opelika head coach Erik Speakman told me before the 2024 season that we would have to talk to Makai “when” he was back on the field, not “if.” Once he made it back and we sat down to talk, I learned how much faith Speakman had in his player to even say the word “when” considering the physical state Makai was in.
Opelika’s Simpson returns to football field months after being shot 6 times in Dadeville tragedy
It's impossible to talk about my feature on Clyde Pittman without talking about his semifinal performance at the end of the season. The only senior of our All-Area football superlatives who wasn't signed to play in college at that point (He's since signed with SMU), I felt a specific pressure to get his story right. He's soft spoken and selfless to a fault, so I had to talk to multiple people to do his career justice but I feel like I did.
Playing against rival Central High School in the state semifinals, Clyde was absolutely dominant on the field and then speaking with him afterwards, he was incredibly complimentary of his teammates and their effort in repaying a loss they'd suffered to the Red Devils in the exact same game of the 2021 season.
He was a great player on the field and off it, he seemed like a solid example of everything Auburn High School had been working towards all season. He's one of those players that will live on in their record books, and for good reason.
‘We did that’: Auburn High gets revenge against Central on way to state title game
OFFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE YEAR: ‘Warrior’ Clyde Pittman set records at Auburn High
This story about Lee-Scott football is easily my favorite game story I've ever written. Gamers are usually the more cut-and-dry stories a person ends up writing and I sometimes find myself struggling to make them interesting, but something about this game really got my brain going. It's one I'll always be proud of because I think I conveyed exactly how it felt on the field and every time I walked into the coaches' offices later, a copy of it was hanging on display by the door.
I'd actually spent the entire game standing in the back of the press box trying to stay out of the way and dry, so I couldn't even be on the sidelines to get a feel for the energy levels. Somehow that didn't matter and the few minutes I spent on the field after the game were enough to get my thoughts racing. I spoke quickly with who I could find among the chaos and the rain, then went to the parking lot and wrote the story from my truck as I tried to capture the energy of the night.
‘I love this team’: Lee-Scott headed to state after sinking Valiant Cross