January Update: A Decade in Review

I'm not one to make New Year's resolutions and, even though we have crossed the threshold into a completely new decade, I don't plan on listings things I would like to accomplish over the next 12 months or the next 10 years.

However, what I did want to do with this post was to take a look back ten years and see where I was at that stage in my media career and compare that to now.

In January 2010, I was living with my parents, working part-time as a personal trainer. I had a goal to have a career in media, but no concrete plan at that time on how to achieve it.

I was writing a sports and pop culture posts five times a week for a blog I created that no longer exists. I didn't get paid to write it, but I enjoyed doing it and it showed that I had the creativity and drive to do it for a living (I just needed someone to give me money to do so).

It was also at the beginning of 2010 that I completed the first draft of my baseball novel. It took another two years to get it published by a small publishing company in Eastern Ontario.

(That company is now out of business--surely the publication of my novel is unrelated!)

The steps and career check marks I hit from that point in 2010 to now, here on the first day of 2020, were incremental. I was the furthest thing from an overnight success.

Case in point:

2011 - Played semi-pro baseball for the London Majors. Then worked as a freelance sports reporter and columnist for the Metro News London. 

2012 - Named editor and sports reporter of two community newspapers: The K-W Review and the Guelph Review (now defunct. I swear it wasn't my fault!)

2013 - Worked at The Weather Network as an on-camera presenter and field reporter.

2014 - Hired by CrossFit Media to be a sideline reporter for their regional fitness competitions. Presented the weather on CBC’s The National, CBC Toronto and CBC News Network.

2015 - Worked as a sideline reporter for ESPN at the Reebok CrossFit Games. Hired at Global TV as a weather anchor.

2016 - Worked as a fill-in sports anchor for Global News and fill-in co-host of The Morning Show on Global.

2017 - Worked as a sports reporter for Global News, producing, editing and writing various sports stories. Sideline reporter for CBS Sports Network for Reebok CrossFit Games.

2018 - Joined Tennis Canada and created a monthly video and article blog for globalnews.ca called Second Serve: An Inside Look at Canadian Tennis (Interviewed Bianca Andreescu, Daniel Nestor, Vasek Pospisil and Denis Shapovalov). Individual competition sideline reporter for CBS main network coverage of the CrossFit Games.

2019 - Produced, hosted and wrote What’s Your Fitness Age and The Culture of Fitness series , covered the Rogers Cup for Global News and did sports radio segments on Global News Radio 640.

It has been a long, arduous process to get where I am today and there were many times when I didn't think things were going to work out, but I kept persevering.

Looking ahead, I am already creating and producing more content for Global in early 2020. One is a series called Fitness Served Cold and the other is a competition series called Top Dog.

Happy New Year! 

December Update: A Wrap on The Culture of Fitness

November not only included a full TV, online, radio and social media roll-out of my new series, The Culture of Fitness, for Global News, but also a trip to Jamaica at the end of the month for a friend's wedding.

It was a much needed week of relaxation after consistent overtime hours for the past couple of months putting the series together and then spending time on Global News Morning and Global News radio previewing each episode.

I posted the Capoeira episode in last month's post, but the following three episodes were about Parkour, Muay Thai and Cricket.

I now have my own page on the Global News website called The Fitness Corner where I will post all of my fitness and sports related videos and additional written content.

I have a couple of ideas for my next fitness related series, but right now the plan is to take easy over the Christmas season. But I may have a tennis tournament over the next couple of weeks as well. I can't take it that easy.

Also, I only have 10 copies of my novel, 60'6": Balls, Strikes and Baseball Mortality left available to purchase through my website. It would make a great stocking stuffer of Secret Santa gift. Here's some more info on the book and how to buy it.

And I will be co-hosting Global News Morning on December 30 and 31.

Thanks for reading and watching!

November Update: The Culture of Fitness

After many hours of overtime and juggling my regular weather and sports duties for Global News, the premiere of my new health and wellness series, The Culture of Fitness, launched this week.

On Tuesday, there was a full social, online, radio and TV roll-out of the first episode. And a similar roll-out will take place on the next three Tuesdays.

Here is the first episode, which is all about Capoeira.

My day on Tuesday started on Global News Morning for an interview previewing the series and to show some teaser clips from the episode above. After my appearance on GNM, I made the rounds on a number of Global News radio stations to discuss the series and get people to check out the online portion of the series on the Global News website.

There is some additional written and video content online to accompany each episode.

I now have dedicated landing page on GlobalNews.ca which houses all of the fitness content I have produced over the past year. This is also where my future health and fitness content will live.

I will show the remaining episodes in next month's post.

Another fitness-related story I have produced and written recently was on Tommy Calhoun, a 75-year-old quarterback who has played in the same touch football league for 57 years!

Here is the full episode.

And here is a link to a blog I wrote about the experience of meeting Tommy and seeing him in action.

Thanks for reading and watching!