Dear Alligator readers and fans,
I would like to take this opportunity to inform you that I will be forgoing my fourth year of writing at the Independent Florida Alligator in order to pursue a professional sports writing career overseas.
I don’t want my announcement to take away from similar recent announcements made by UF athletes Joe Haden, Major Wright, Carlos Dunlap and Alex Tyus.
Sure, the four of them have combined for exactly zero articles published over their careers, but I couldn’t have achieved all the fame and super stardom without having them around to tackle people and dunk basketballs so that I could write about them.
Protathlitis, a daily sports newspaper in Greece, has offered me € 1.5 million over the next two years to cover soccer, and as much as I have enjoyed my time here in Gainesville, I simply can’t leave that kind of money — plus a brand new voice recorder and laptop, and a lifetime supply of legal pads and pens— on the table.
Many of you will wonder how loads of money and reaching the pinnacle of my profession could possibly outweigh another year of half-assing my classes in pursuit of a degree that will always be there for me to come back to if my career with Protathlitis doesn’t work out.
I sympathize with your frustration.
I only ask for the understanding that I can’t risk returning for my final year with the chance of carpal tunnel claiming my God-given ability and rendering me incapable of cashing a check this size ever again.
I feel now is the perfect time to leave as my statistics from this past season — 150 bylines on published stories, two breaking news stories, 400 interviews conducted — may be hard to repeat next year.
Furthermore, my performance at the writers’ combine has raised my profile after I typed at a pace never before thought possible for a human being — 400-words-per-minute.
Do newspaper scouts put too much importance on a reporter’s WPM score? Absolutely.
The great ones aren’t always the fastest in the comfort of their own home, in front of the TV and in a low-pressure event advance situation.
Some of the fastest WPM writers just can’t seem to keep up when deadline barrels down and the stadium’s wireless Internet intermittently fails.
We in the business call the latter game speed.
I’m told you can’t teach speed — lucky for me — and Protathlitis has a reputation for being the Al Davis of Euro newspapers.
I digress.
What I really want to say is thank you for all the fan support over the years. I couldn’t have written countless features and columns, and recorded the 100 podcasts without all of you.
OK, that’s not true.
I will be just as successful with my pro career in another city and continent as I was here, but my agent told me to try to lessen the blow of my leaving with trying to make all of you feel like you can share in my success.
When I committed to this sports section three years ago, I never imagined leaving before my eligibility ran out, but now that my talents are highly sought after, I have little-to-no regrets about breaking every single one of the commitments I made so long ago.
No matter what happens from here, I will always be an Alligator.
Sincerely,
Kyle Maistri #5
Editor’s note: Kyle Maistri won’t “officially” hire an agent until his contract is finalized, thus keeping open a possible return next year.
