Grieve Leave’s Sports Reporter, Checking In

I am a massive sports fan. I was a Sport Management major in college. I interned at four professional sports teams. I was an NFL mascot for two seasons.

But my favorite job relating to sports? It’s being Grieve Leave’s unofficial sports correspondent. It’s a title I earned beginning years ago by sending Rebecca DMs that started with, “Sports reporter, checking in!”

Sports taught me a lot about grief before I even realized it. When your team loses in the playoffs, or your favorite player is traded, you grieve as a sports fan. And as much as I love the nuances of the game on the field, I’ve always loved the personal stories even more.

That’s why I love listening to The Dan LeBatard Show with Stugotz. Dan LeBatard is one of the hosts, and he has always worked to humanize athletes and tell their stories. His producers jokingly call him “The Grief Eater” when he tries to get deep with an athlete and learn more about their life. Whether it’s a tough upbringing or an actual loss, Dan helps bring those stories to the surface.

I remember listening to one episode from Dan’s podcast where he tells a story about wrapping his arms around his dying dog in his car, shirtless, when a fan pulls up next to him and recognizes him.

That clip aired around 2016.

Two years later, in 2018, my own childhood dog was about to be put down. I was in my mid-20s, sitting on the ground holding him, crying. And in the middle of that moment, I remembered Dan’s story and started laughing through my tears. It was one of those strange grief moments where something heartbreaking and something funny collide.

Fast forward to 2023 when I matched with Rebecca on Bumble (true story). She was in Austin, where I live, for a bachelorette party. We messaged for a bit, and she told me about the work she was leading with Grieve Leave. I followed along on Instagram, and we’ve stayed in touch as friends ever since. 

Over time, I started sending her clips whenever I saw moments where sports and grief intersected. Eventually, I started jokingly referring to myself as Grieve Leave’s sports reporter, but, truly, I take that role pretty seriously.

Dan LeBatard, himself, experienced the loss of his younger brother, and he truly grieved on air. Seeing a prominent man in sports, where emotions are often treated as weakness, put his grief front and center was powerful for me. I’ve supported the Movember Foundation since 2014 because I believe strongly in destigmatizing mental health, especially for men. That belief eventually led me to start therapy when I was 25. Watching someone like Dan talk openly about grief helped reinforce that emotional honesty isn’t weakness.

It’s strength.

One of the first clips I shared with Rebecca was an interview Dan did with actor Rob Delaney, who was touring a book about the grief of losing his young son. During the conversation, Dan shared the story of losing his brother.

In the middle of this incredibly emotional moment, the camera pans to one of the producers dressed as an old-timey baseball player: something that makes perfect sense to fans of the show, but absolutely no sense to anyone else watching. In the clip, you can literally see Dan flip from crying to laughing.

That moment captures exactly what I’m talking about. Grief and humor sit right next to each other.

I send Rebecca these clips because of the community she’s built and the reach she has. When she shares them, they reach people who might not otherwise encounter them. And honestly, seeing that happen gives me a weirdly specific kind of joy. It’s like when you throw a party and invite two groups of friends who have never met before, and then they end up becoming friends.

Sharing sports moments with Rebecca and seeing them land with the Grieve Leave community feels like bringing two worlds I care about together: sports and grief. And when someone sees one of those clips, and it makes them laugh, think, or feel a little less alone, that’s the best outcome I could hope for.

Because sometimes grief shows up in the places we maybe don’t expect it to, like sports podcasts. And that’s exactly where we need it to be.