Fish and Chipps: “The Fraternity”

As I walked into The Boston Globe for my first day of work in the summer of 2014 to begin my six-month co-op covering high school sports, I was a hot mess.

Besides the fact that I had no idea how to pronounce any of those peculiar Massachusetts town names, I couldn’t find a story to save my life or get any summer league baseball coaches to call me back. I was also physically impaired, and it wasn’t pretty at all.

I showed up to The Boston Globe with a black eye. It was my first day of work, and I already looked like I had just covered “Malice at the Palace” and returned with more casualties than actual substance.

Being the naturally curious and skeptical reporter that he is, my new colleague and soon-to-be friend Mike McMahon kept giving me spotty looks from across the aisle.

My insecurities were running at an all-time high. I had no story, no friends and no idea where I was headed or where the next six months would be taking me. You’d think I would at least be in top physical condition for such a strenuous occasion, right?

After about an hour or so of self-loathing, Mike came over to me and asked me the one question I just couldn’t answer honestly on the first day.

“So why do you have a black eye?”

Oh, god. Not that question. Ask me any other question. Why is your zipper down? What’s your lede on this baseball story? How many sources have you contacted? Are you a Dunkin’ Donuts guy or a Starbucks guy? Just please, not that question.

“Uh, I live in a crappy house in Allston and as I was walking up the stairs, I tripped on a piece of wood and fell,” I told him.

Everyone and their mom knew that wasn’t true, mostly because I’m a terrible liar and my face turns dark red when I’m not being 100 percent honest.

It wasn’t ideal, but that’s how my friendship with Mike officially started. We were in The Boston Globe newsroom talking about my black eye.

For the next six months, Mike and I would form a journalism friendship that consisted of scrambling text messages such as, “Dude, I’m screwed. There’s no way I’m getting this story filed on time.”

And the usual, “This coach refuses to call me back. I think he hates me.”

And the occasional, “Dude, I just locked myself out of the car and had to call 911 to get a tow truck. You think they can push back the deadline for me?”

Every sportswriter will tell you that it’s times like these when you need a friend who feels your pain and has your back, or at least one who will send you a text message with some form of inspiration.

Journalism can be a lonely profession sometimes. It’s a business where we spend most of our time in the company of other people, but often, our only companion is Father Time (and that’s assuming you know you’re going to hit deadline).

It’s a hostile place too. For a profession that’s creed is the selflessness of “telling other people’s stories,” there sure is a lot of ego. You don’t think so? Spend a day on sports journalism Twitter and you’ll see the endless number of Twitter fights between beat writers, critics and fans mauling at each other about anything from clicks to reputation to the plain old, “You’re wrong. I’m right. Go cry about it.”

This always struck me as odd. Like any other profession, journalism’s a competitive business, and there’s certainly an aspect of the grind that feeds off of rivalries between newspapers, reporters, bloggers and media organizations.

But this fueled distaste for each other — specifically between writers and reporters — has boggled me because I can’t help but admire and respect my colleagues and friends.

Do I want the best story? Of course, but I wouldn’t be half the writer I am today if it weren’t for the journalism homies with whom I’ve formed friendships along the way.

Some might simply call us a good group of buddies or journalism nerds, but I call my crew “The Fraternity.” It truly takes a special breed of human beings to want to walk down the winding path of journalism and go on this crazy ride through the tight deadlines and late-night game recaps.

The Fraternity isn’t just a friendship — it’s a bond through journalism. It’s a pact of talented young men and women who have dedicated their life to fighting the good fight by pursuing a career that gives more than it receives. It’s a special group of people who want to help journalism expand and grow, but who also love to tell a great story.

My brothers and sisters may be the ones I’m competing against for that job or internship, but their work inspires and motivates me. I see 3,000-word profiles and feature stories from The Fraternity, and I’m captivated by their brilliance. I see their ledes on gamers or their vivid descriptions of important story scenes, and all I can think to myself is, “How did he or she do that?”

Along the way, we’ve had a lot of laughs, drank more than a few beers and had an absolute blast debating our favorite long-form writers and hypothetical theorems of the sports world. We’ve sat back and dreamt about how much we want to cover the Super Bowl or the NBA Finals, or how much we’d give to have the opportunity to profile a superstar. From time to time, we’ve even taken our talents (or lack thereof) to the basketball court together and drained 3-pointers over each other.

Over the course of my four years at BU and abroad, I’ve been blessed to make some incredible friendships through my journalistic endeavors, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.

In three months, this chapter of my life will close and another one will open. While some critics fear for the next generation of journalists, I know The Fraternity will flourish when the new chapter begins. If you don’t believe me, I implore you to spend 10 minutes on the Internet and find the incredible stories told by my homies in The Fraternity. We’re everywhere, and we ain’t going anywhere anytime soon.

The newsroom might literally be a dying breed, but I’m optimistic that journalism will always be like your grandmother’s noodle kugel. Whether or not you like us or want us (sometimes there’s a bit too many raisins), we’ll always be at the table.

To all of the brothers and sisters of The Fraternity that I’ve been fortunate enough to work with, learn from and form a friendship, thank you for inspiring me everyday and showing me what it really means to go #BossMode.

Stay hungry, stay curious and keep grinding every damn day. The world has no idea what kind of journalism is about to hit them.

P.S. Five months later as we were driving back from a high school hockey jamboree, I finally told Mike the truth — I was trying to break dance and fell on my face. That’s why I showed up to my first day of work at The Boston Globe with a black eye.