Welcome to “Attending to know Pounding the Rock’s writers”! Throughout the All-Star break, we thought it we be enjoyable to get to know just a little bit extra about our writers right here at PtR.
A bit about myself
I’ve been at PtR since 2013 and overlaying this group as a credentialed author since 2017. Exterior of that I’ve a day job, spouse, two youngsters, and a small however rising assortment of Kyle Anderson basketball playing cards, all life occasions that occurred in between articles on Derrick White or David Lee. For those who met me IRL you’d in all probability not assume I used to be 38 except you bought me began on The Adventures of Pete and Pete or noticed an MRI of my again.
How I turned a Spurs fan
Whereas I wasn’t born in San Antonio, spent solely a piece of my childhood right here, and have pretty imminent plans to maneuver away, this metropolis is and at all times shall be ‘residence’, and the Spurs are a giant motive why.
We moved right here from Houston in 1996, and I used to be initially a Rockets fan. I nonetheless keep in mind staying as much as watch Rudy T’s speech in 1994, and a few of my favourite 90s gamers are nonetheless members of these title groups. Whereas the group’s hideous rebrand and growing older out helped me detach, I didn’t instantly click on with the Spurs, both, even with Tim Duncan’s arrival. (I’ve obscure reminiscences of lining up for hours with my dad at a meet-and-greet for him on the then-newly inaugurated Alamo Quarry Market his rookie season, solely to go residence with nothing.) As a transplant, the ‘99 title didn’t resonate as a lot with me. I used to be in all probability nonetheless enjoying a variety of “Ocarina of Time”.
Fandom’s a foolish factor, and mine solely actually cemented itself after I left city once more in highschool. Following together with the Spurs turned considered one of my strongest ties to this metropolis after transferring away in 2001, then going to school in one other state and making common journeys again throughout college breaks and, later, after I labored abroad. I nonetheless get a sick feeling from Derek Fisher’s shot in ‘04 and keep in mind being actually sick after Dirk’s in ‘06, though the latter might be as a result of it was on the night time of my twenty first birthday after I was residence for the summer season. I suffered Ray Allen’s shot from a piece laptop in Auckland, New Zealand and adopted the whole thing of the 2014 run from numerous bars and casinos in downtown London in the course of the night time, as a result of we had no web in our flat and all over the place else was closed. I keep in mind repeatedly ending up a recreation and catching the following bus to work as a substitute of residence, with no regrets. Once more, fandom is foolish like that.
How I ended up at Pounding the Rock
In 2013, having simply skilled our shared heartbreak, I discussed to a good friend of mine from San Antonio that I’d prefer to attempt running a blog about basketball. He stated his sister knew a man (Fred Silva, for all of the previous heads right here) who wrote for a web site, she handed on his particulars to me, I emailed him, he forwarded my e mail onto J.R. Wilco, who was good sufficient to let me attempt running a blog about basketball. It took me some time to get snug writing on this area, and even longer to cease studying each remark for validation, nevertheless it’s been an superior and rewarding expertise each step of the way in which.
That features getting the chance to cowl the group as a beat author, starting in 2017 when my now-wife and I moved again to Texas. My tenure’s spanned the Kawhi Leonard saga, video games inside an empty enviornment, and extra Ls than anticipated — not the very best timing contemplating the highs that preceded it, however I can’t say sufficient about and the relationships made inside and across the group, the prospect to ask the best coach of all time the occasional query, and having folks keen to learn my observations, reactions and horrible jokes. I nonetheless contemplate myself fortunate to have the entry I do, even when actual life has eaten into my bandwidth and talent to obsess about each element as I did in years previous. Fortunately, Wemby’s arrival has introduced a brand new lens to the group, and Spurs protection ought to solely get extra intensive each right here and in different retailers. However largely right here — don’t learn the opposite guys.
Extra bios:
Marilyn Dubinski
