Pittsburgh has three qualities that I adore, l’m thrilled to be back to Pittsburgh sports.

Pittsburgh has three qualities that I adore.

Though there are many, these three really hit the nail on the head for me:

1. The view of the city when you emerge from the Fort Pitt Tunnel. I could go without the traffic, though.

2. Night games at PNC Park when the city’s skyline is lit up beyond the Allegheny River. There’s not a better view in baseball.

3. And last, but certainly not least, the North Shore on a Steelers Sunday. The atmosphere is one of a kind.

Growing up in a small town in Western New York, I never got the chance to experience these things. They were foreign to me. The entire city experience was. So when I first came to the city in 2010 after enrolling at Slippery Rock University, I was awe-struck because Pittsburgh is simply a special place.

So, after a three-year stint in the Youngstown-Warren area of Ohio, which is called the Mahoning Valley, I’m excited to jump back into the fray by covering the Steelers, and whatever else may come up, here at DK Pittsburgh Sports because this is what I’m meant to do.

To give that statement a little more context, and to tell you a little bit about myself, I’m from Wellsville. I received my bachelor’s degree from Slippery Rock in 2014 and moved to Arizona shortly afterward for my first full-time journalism job. I was chasing a dream. Or a calling, for that matter.

In 2018, I graduated from Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication with a master’s degree in sports journalism before moving back to the Pittsburgh area to work for the Beaver County Times. After about a year, I started at the Tribune-Review where I covered high school sports, the Riverhounds and occasionally chipped in on the Pitt beat.

I moved to the Mahoning Valley in 2021 to be closer to my girlfriend Lauren, who is now my wife.

After 2 1/2 years as sports editor at the Tribune Chronicle and The Vindicator newspapers, I switched over to the news side and eventually became editor-in-chief. However, as DK wrote Friday, my heart was always in another place and I had an itch to get back into sports reporting. So, I took a leap and I couldn’t have landed at a better place.

I’ve known for a long time that the Pittsburgh sports world is a great place to be and I’m excited to be back and contributing to a team that is known for delivering top-tier content for its readers.

I hope you’re just as excited as I am because July 24 can’t come soon enough.