If you would’ve told me four years ago when I started college at the University of Michigan – or even last year as I was graduating, for that matter – that I would be working at an integrated creative agency, I would’ve probably said that you were crazy. Not because I didn’t have any interest in PR or working at an agency; at that point in my life I just wanted to be the guy in the suit doing the sportscast behind the desk.

Flashback to my final semester of college at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota: There I was, sitting at graduation, listening to a commencement speech with a ton of previous experience and internships. But I didn’t have a job, and I recently had a change of heart with what I wanted to do with my life.

I grew up a sports fanatic. Lived, breathed and ate it. As a few Minnesota sports radio personalities would sarcastically put it, “Sports, sports, sports. Our whole life is sports.” Yes — figuratively speaking, mine was, or at least pretty close to it. I wasn’t the kid who watched cartoons or read comics in his free time. I had a game on or I read about athletes. If I wasn’t studying, I was at a gym or field – a “gym rat,” so to speak. And if I was spending a little time playing video games, you can bet it was a sports game.

That love for for the game created a desire to work in sports as a profession. because I knew I didn’t have what it took to be a D-I athlete. I constantly debated if I wanted to be a part of an organization or be involved in other ways after I graduated high school. From that point on, I worked with a D-I football team, a television sports network, a sports radio station and two television network affiliates.

My experience in sports television guided me to think I wanted to be a sports anchor. This lasted until about half way through my last semester of college, when I decided I wanted something different.

Shortly after I graduated, that’s when I got my PR break. It was an opportunity with a Fortune 500 company, so I took a leap and made the switch. Maybe my switch was a little earlier than some journalists who decide to come to the “good side,” as I like to call it now. Let me tell you, I don’t regret it one bit.

Well, here I am today, after a transformation from corporate American to agency life. A Pony fresh out of the starting gate in my first week — the week of the Kentucky Derby, might I add. I’m not even a furlong into my race, and the public address announcer just barely finished his opening call over the loud speaker. All I can hear is, “aaannnddd they’rrreee racinggg.” I just want to gallop, hopefully as fast as American Pharaoh, and make an impact, learn and amass all of the knowledge I possibly can during my race at Fast Horse.