Time Out With Tyler: Sports fill my soul; and I'll fill these pages

In my 17 years of living, I’ve had a hard time finding anything that interests me for very long.

School, boring.

Reading, boring.

Waterparks, boring.

Shopping, boring.

Hikes, boring.

Watching movies, boring.

Someone shooting an off-balance, 25-foot shot before it splashes into the net or sprinting 20 miles an hour, jumping up and extending their body to catch a ball by their fingertips as they come crashing to the ground, somehow managing to hang onto the ball — now, that’s something I can get into.

Sports has always fascinated me. Ever since I was a little boy growing up here in Cloquet, all I’ve ever wanted to do was sports. The idea of getting paid to do something with sports seemed too good to be true. At first, I dreamed of being an athlete, but I soon understood that my dream of being an NFL quarterback just wasn’t going to happen.

Ever since then, the dream has been to work for ESPN. I’ve even considered naming my future kid, if I have one, Espn (pronounced “espen”). This dream has become an obsession. Especially over the last couple months.

I have reached out to hundreds of people (not an exaggeration), looking for any opportunity to gain experience, build my network, and learn any bit of advice that may help me. This has led to some pretty cool opportunities: getting to job shadow Daniel Williamson from WDIO and David La Vaque from the Star Tribune. Not to mention, the reason you are reading this article: about a month ago, I reached out to Jana Peterson, the editor here at the Pine Knot News. And now I’ve got a writing gig.

So, to formally introduce myself, my name is Tyler Harms-Synkiew. I’m a 17-year-old senior at Cloquet High School and have lived in Cloquet my entire life. I’d describe myself as a hardworking, independent person who is passionate about all things sports.

My life, more or less, depends on sports. Without sports my life is incomplete, just blah and boring. With sports comes happiness and excitement. When I’m engaged with anything related to sports, something happens inside of me. It’s an unexplainable feeling that turns what usually is a shy, quiet, introverted and mature kid, into an outgoing talkative kid with a maturity level resembling that of a 5-year-old boy who just broke into the candy stash.

All of my work has been driven by my love of sports. Although difficult and very time-consuming, none of it seems like actual work. Now I get paid to watch sports, how awesome is that? I know this journey is going to be hard and require years of persistence and dedication in order to master my craft, but I hope my eagerness to learn — along with my curiosity — will propel me to accomplish great things in the future.

After this year, I plan on attending the University of Minnesota, St. Cloud State University, or the University of St. Thomas to major in communications and/or journalism, and will be continually looking for opportunities to gain experience and expand my network.

For at least the next little bit, I will be writing sports articles for Pine Knot News. Jana and I have brainstormed great ideas. The winter sports are upon us and I’m very excited to cover these teams as they look to do great things this season.

Got ideas to share? Contact Tyler at [email protected] or call the Pine Knot News office at 218-878-9332.