Hello Seminole Nation

If you’re an out-of-work sports journalist fresh off a three-month mental vacation -- most of which was spent trying to decide what to do when you grow up -- starting a blog makes perfect sense, right?

Or maybe I’m just not ready to grow up despite being closer to 40 than 30 these days.

Regardless, I’m excited and thankful to start writing again as a contributor to World Sports Blogs. Hopefully this is the start of a meaningful and long-lasting relationship instead of one of those late-summer romances I had in college.

Before I make another leap into the blogosphere -- click here for a taste of the FSU blog I wrote at The Tampa Tribune -- let me tell you a little bit about myself. I graduated from the University of Florida when another Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback played for the Gators. Back then, Tim Tebow was barely out of diapers while Danny Wuerffel was shredding SEC defenses on the way to winning the 1996 Heisman and leading the Gators to their first national title.

After graduating, I started a newspaper career that eventually took me to The Tampa Tribune, where I spent a decade far from the passion of college sports. I spent most of my time there covering the Rays, Lightning and horse racing.

It was great while it lasted, but the decline of the newspaper industry cost me my job a year ago, and here I am typing away on a new endeavor.

You might wonder why a University of Florida grad opted to focus his new blog on Florida State University sports. Well, I moved to Tallahassee in 2006 to start covering FSU for the Tribune. I thought it was a great assignment full of rich stories detailing the end of football coach Bobby Bowden’s prolific career.

I was right. For the two years I covered the Seminoles for the Tribune, I wrote some of my favorite stories and got to know many folks in the FSU sports family. However, I never expected Bowden to outlast me on the beat, but that’s what happened as newspapers began to cut back resources. Here is a story talking about the end of my time at Tribune.

When you’re a sports journalist living in Tallahassee, there’s nothing you can report on and write about that's more interesting than FSU. Hence the name of my new blog: Seminoles Sports Center.

If you’re a Seminoles fan, I hope you’ll take a look and come back for more. If not, I hope you'll read simply because you find the blog interesting. I’ll be writing mostly about FSU football and Bowden, who has agreed to provide me with occasional special access as I work on a book detailing the twilight of his legendary career.

When people ask me who I have enjoyed covering the most during my career, the answer is easy. Bowden is No. 1, former Rays and current Cubs manager Lou Piniella is No. 1A. Both are a sportswriter’s dream: honest, funny and human quote machines.

They are also very similar in many ways. They treat everyone from the team owner to the guy painting stripes on the field with equal respect. OK, that’s not entirely true. Piniella isn’t nearly as fond of pitchers who throw too many balls or umpires who call too many.

Anyway, my main mission here as I report and offer analysis on the Noles is to inform, entertain and most importantly, have fun.

Seems there isn’t nearly as much of that in sports these days.

Thanks for stopping by.