Birthdays never bother me. Getting older continues to be much better than the alternative.

The only one who ever bothered me was 23 years old. Think about it. You spend your whole life longing to be older than you are. Sixteen so you can drive. Eighteen years old to be able to vote or go to bars without a fake ID (at the time, that was the minimum age in West Virginia). Twenty-one, to be able to go to bars without a fake ID in states where the legal drinking age is not 18.

At 22, you’re still in the afterglow of 21. At 23, it hit me. There are no other “good” birthdays.

That said, PFT is now 23 years old.

We flipped the switch on November 1, 2001. I had stumbled upon this profession over a year earlier, writing for free (they were good value for money) on the now long-defunct site NFLTalk.com . I started doing more and more for them, at the same salary. I began making a few radio appearances to talk football and to promote the long-defunct NFLTalk.com, which taught me (over time) to speak extemporaneously and, most of the time, , to make sense of it by doing it.

When the tech bubble first burst in early 2001, NFLTalk.com’s parent company (SportsTalk.com) went bankrupt. ESPN bought the carcass. One thing led to another, and I ended up with a six-month contract to write a daily news summary for ESPN.com’s Insider subscription service.

They didn’t know exactly that I practiced law full time. I didn’t exactly tell them. I would get up at five, work for four or five hours, then go to my office for the rest of the day. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Then came the 9/11 attacks, and it made me wonder if it made sense to keep burning the candle at both ends, and in the middle. ESPN offered a one-year extension, starting November 1, for the princely sum of $36,000.

How, why, and when it became a decision to start my own business remains unclear. Most of the time I acted on instinct. The most important factors were: (1) I couldn’t continue working 12 to 15 hours a day, maybe more; and (2) I didn’t like the fact that after submitting my daily product to whoever got it from ESPN.com, it took two or three hours for the various layers and levels of approval to be given and for the content to be broadcast. live.

What if, I thought, I created my own thing that would allow me to publish presentations instantly, without delay?

And so, for $500 and $50 per month, PFT was born. Twenty-three years ago today. I didn’t know where it would go. I didn’t know if it would last. All I knew was that I loved doing it. It was fun. It gave me a creative outlet, it allowed me to follow more than ever a sport that I had loved since I was seven years old.

“And who knows?” I told myself at the time. “Maybe it will become something.”

It took several years to generate real revenue. Which was good. It was a hobby. Cheaper than golf or other activities that cost more than $50 per month. And the traffic was increasing, slowly but surely. A snowball rolling down a long, flat slope. The numbers were getting bigger and bigger every month.

Sprint arrived as its first major sponsor in early 2006, out of the blue. That’s when I knew I would eventually stop practicing law and start doing it all the time. Three years later, Rick Cordella (now president of NBC Sports) called to discuss a partnership.

I didn’t want to do it. It was only after our traffic triggered a complete server implosion on the first day of free agency in 2009 that I realized it wasn’t sustainable – not without a major infusion of cash that I I was too cheap and too short on expenses.

So we closed the deal. Effective July 1, 2009. And here we are, more than 15 years later, still with NBC. One day at a time, one message at a time. It just continued.

We went from one part-time writer (me) to five full-time contributors. We have expanded to various other platforms. I probably spend as much time on it now as I did when I was working two jobs in 2001. But I wouldn’t do anything else. (Apart from writing books when I can find a few quiet hours, four or five evenings a week.)

Twenty-three years old. 23 years ago, I never would have imagined what it would become.

I will continue to do this for as long as I am physically able. For every day since January 1, 2004 (the only New Year’s resolution I’ve ever kept), I’ve written at least one article for PFT. Most days it’s between 10 and 15 hours. Many days it’s more. With a two-hour weekday morning show, more than 20 weekends of travel and pregame shows on NBC, and everything that goes with the territory.

This is good territory. The eight-year-old version of me, if he could have even begun to understand how digital content would be created and distributed, would have simultaneously shit his pants and counted down the days.

Really, it would have made my 23rd birthday a lot easier. I would have known that I was months away from meeting my wife (it took a little longer than that for her to reciprocate), eight years away from having a son, and 13 to start an adventure. it’s brought me to the brink of sixty – and it will continue until it’s time to leave for good.

I’m not afraid of the end, whatever it may be. None of us should do it. All we can do is do the best we can with the time we have. And while there are days when I wonder if I’m contributing anything of value to society, I receive an ever-growing collection of emails from people who use our content as a temporary escape from the problems they face. have to face every day. day, a welcome part of their routine that helps balance out the unwanted parts of their routine.

That’s good enough for me. Mainly because it’s too late to dismount. I’ll ride it for as long as I can, and I’ll be grateful to each and every one of you who continues to give it a reason to ride it.