The Comfort Zone

On paper, quitting my job at 28 years old without a plan was a really stupid thing to do.

After graduating from Bryant University in 2006, I stumbled into a job as Amherst College’s Acting Assistant Sports Information Director. Amherst was desperate to find someone to fill the role, and in September 2006 I happened to be in the right place at the right time. My new boss said I might have the job for only a month (or less) while the school conducted a national search, hence the “Acting” portion of my title. I think my most appealing attributes were that I lived four miles from campus and could start immediately.

I also came cheap. Amherst offered a salary that worked out to $22,000 a year (not that I expected to last a full year). At the time I felt rich. I couldn’t believe how much money they were paying me to watch and write about sports.

What could have been a brief stint at Amherst turned into six years. A two-person operation, the Sports Information Director and I provided all content for the school’s athletics website, created program handouts for our home sporting events, oversaw student workers who helped us at those events, pitched stories to the media, produced a football magazine, and served as statisticians for select games and matches. Amherst had twenty-seven varsity sports teams, most of which competed at the Division Three level.

In the spring, I hit my stride while working at baseball and softball games. I even convinced renowned baseball coach Bill Thurston to allow me to throw batting practice to his team. Two or three times per week, I would take a break from my office work, change clothes, and walk across campus to Memorial Field; it felt like I was skipping school. Some players called me Justin, but many called me Coach Long. I probably would have worked for free year-round, as long as Amherst promised I could throw batting practice each spring.

As far as first jobs went, working in Amherst’s sports information department was pretty darn close to perfect. Working with such accomplished individuals at a prestigious institution provided a crash course in how to act like a professional. My writing skills improved as I produced feature stories for the school’s alumni magazine. I used the fitness center and basketball court on some mornings before work, and took advantage of the vacant athletic fields in the summer. I made friends with assistant coaches who were around my age and who worked similarly exhausting hours. My rent was cheap and I lived close to friends and family. The world of Division Three athletics had a lovable innocence and purity to it, even if I wished I could ignore some of the sports I was required to cover. (I’m looking at you, squash.)

It was difficult to imagine a scenario in which I’d ever want to leave that comfort zone.

But the job was a grind, with no weekends off during the school year. Late nights at the office and seventy-hour workweeks became the norm. My first 100-hour week was a wakeup call. I recall one day leaving my office around 3:00 a.m., when my car was the only one remaining in the Converse Hall parking lot. Downtown Amherst was silent; even the drunk UMass students who usually filled the bars along North Pleasant Street had already gone home. None of my co-workers had any sense of my schedule. I was struggling and alone.

When I accompanied the women’s basketball team to Illinois to cover the 2011 national championship game, I finished working the final night of the trip at 8:00 a.m., then took a two-hour nap before flying back to Massachusetts with the team. The following Saturday, two of my college friends got married on what was the final day of the national swimming and diving championships. In addition to missing the wedding ceremony, I showed up late to the reception. As others danced and drank, I sat on a staircase out of sight and worked, trying not to draw attention as I hunched over my laptop and struggled to find a solid Internet connection. Embarrassed and apologetic, it was the first time I saw my job through someone else’s perspective. What the hell am I doing?

I could feel myself losing interest in my job. Was working in Amherst’s sports information department still what I wanted to do, or was it simply what I had become comfortable doing? The pros of the job had always outweighed the cons, but the discrepancy wasn’t as large as it had once been.

Needing a change of pace after my sixth academic year at Amherst, I applied in the summer of 2012 for sports information jobs at two Division One colleges. Neither school ever responded to me. Not even a rejection e-mail. I pivoted to my options at Amherst and pitched to the Athletics Director a newly created position of Assistant Athletics Director of Communications. Proud of the proposal’s thoroughness and ambition, I was even excited about the possibility. It didn’t take long for Amherst to politely reject that proposal.

I had given everything I had to Amherst for six years. The thought of returning to my same role for another semester was emotionally draining. I felt as though I had hit a wall in a maze and didn’t have the energy to search for another route. But at least I was working at a respected institution with talented and caring people. There were far worse places to be “stuck,” and I was fortunate to have a job. This is your peak, Justin. Accept it and move on.

Around that same time, one of my childhood friends, Nate, visited Hadley, and we met up for drinks. He had recently lost many of his belongings in an apartment fire in Boston, the same week Amherst rejected my job proposal. Nate was planning to quit his job and drive to California to start fresh. When I told him I was feeling a little lost at work, he tried to convince me I should go with him. Ha! Yeah, okay, Nate. I’ll just quit my job and drive across the country. What would I even do in California?

Maybe if I was younger, a cross-country adventure would have been more appealing. But it felt like 28 was too old to start over. If I left, it would mean no more throwing batting practice. No paycheck every two weeks. No more running my own department or writing feature stories. It was a lot to give up. Like Michael Che once said: “Follow your dreams. Unless you have a job with good insurance.” The safe play was to stay put.

But there was something missing in my life. Back in 2010 I had applied for the position of Media Relations and Broadcast Coordinator with the Oakland A’s, basically just a reflex response to learning such a job existed. (Wait, I can do what I’m doing at Amherst but for a Major League Baseball team?!) It was a half-hearted application at a time I wasn’t seriously prepared to leave Amherst, and I had ZERO chance of getting that job.

Two years later, though, that had changed. Now prepared to leave Amherst, I wondered: What if I really could work in Major League Baseball? More importantly: What if I never made the effort? And I don’t mean one half-hearted application to a job for which I was underqualified; I mean what if I never made a serious effort? I told my mom I didn’t want to wake up forty years old and say, “I should have tried.” I was well aware I might fail. But I had to try.

Three days after Nate’s visit, I told him I’d join him on his drive to California. On October 11, 2012, we packed my car and headed for the West Coast. I had no idea what I was going to do when I got there. No plan. No interviews lined up. No job prospects.

It wasn’t until five weeks later, on November 15, that I found clarity in what I wanted.

Following a long hike, I pulled off my sneakers and socks on Stinson Beach and spread my toes, my feet sinking into the sand to provide a welcome remedy after hours of walking. The water was cold but refreshing as it rushed past me, the low tide never rising above my ankles. Despite dozens of attempts, I failed to take a photo that properly captured the beauty of the sun setting over Bolinas Bay. Watching the sun set thousands of miles from home without a worry in the world, I felt completely free, the stresses of my previous job behind me.

In that moment of tranquility on Stinson Beach, I asked myself, If I could do anything in the world, what would I want to do?

The answer was obvious: I want to work for the Boston Red Sox.

Leaving Amherst wasn’t easy. And it was risky. I had hundreds of reasons to stay. Some people tried to convince me I was doing the wrong thing, that I should play it safe and choose the path of job security. That there was no guarantee I’d ever work in professional baseball. But I knew with 100 percent certainty I was doing the right thing.

In my 10 years of working in Major League Baseball, I’ve reached levels of happiness I never thought possible. But like I told my mom, the most important thing is that I won’t wake up one day and say to myself, I should have tried. I tried. I chased my dream. And I’ll never have to wonder what could have been.

J.P.

(Bolinas Bay/Stinson Beach, California, November 15, 2012)