Dear Editor,
There are moments in life when you stop, look around, and quietly ask yourself, How is this real? Super Bowl Media Week in San Francisco was one of those moments for me.
I’m from Galva. A small town where Friday nights mean high school sports, where everyone knows everyone, and where the idea of covering the biggest sporting event on the planet feels more like a dream than something you could actually be doing.
Growing up, the Super Bowl wasn’t something I thought I’d ever play a part in. It was a couch, a plate of chicken wings, and a room full of friends and family. Never, not once, did I imagine I’d someday be walking through credentialed hallways, surrounded by media members from across the country.
Yet somehow there I was.
Thanks to my professor at Arizona State University, William Rhoden, that’s exactly where I found myself. As part of his column writing class, we were given the opportunity to attend Media Week in San Francisco. That sentence still feels strange to say out loud. A classroom experience that somehow transported a kid from Galva into the largest sporting event in America.
It didn’t take long for the scale of everything to hit me. Cameras everywhere. Reporters sprinting from interview to interview. Conversations happening in every direction. It felt like stepping into a world I only knew from TV, except now I had to act like I belonged there and not like I was a fan at a convention.
One of the most unforgettable parts of the week was meeting the people I grew up idolizing. Athletes whose posters hung on bedroom walls. Broadcasters whose voices shaped Sundays. Sports icons I had only ever seen through highlights and interviews were suddenly standing a few feet away, answering questions, sometimes even my questions.
I was fortunate to interview now Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks players Jaxson Smith-Njigba and Jarran Reed. I also met media icons such as Kirk Hirbstreit, Pat McAfee, Sally Jenkins, J.A Adonde, Ian Rappaport, and even players like DeAndre Hopkins and Cam Heyward.
Meeting your sports idols is a strange experience. You expect nerves, and they were definitely there, but what surprised me most was the overwhelming sense of gratitude. Gratitude for the chance to be in the room. Gratitude for the path that somehow led a kid from a small town in Illinois to one of the biggest stages in sports. These were moments I knew I’d remember long after the week ended.
And maybe the biggest realization of the week was this: the world I grew up watching from a distance isn’t unreachable. It’s real. It’s busy. It’s loud. It’s a little chaotic. And where you start doesn’t define where you can go.
Tyler Piester
Phoenix, Ariz.
