Forever Indebted

I am not really sure how to start this, but here it goes. Yesterday we lost an incredible human, a great friend, and a true inspiration. Mark Lane was all of those things and more to a lot of people in the sports journalism world. I first meet Mark several years ago on social media in passing. We would often chat about the Texans and he would always ask me why I didn’t write more. I have always wanted to do more of this, but really never had the drive to keep the articles rolling after a few goes at it.

One thing Mark never did was give up on me. I sat down to dinner with Mark about 4 years ago now at a Whataburger in Katy. We enjoyed a couple burgers and threw around some ideas on what my future looked like in this space. One thing Mark never wanted to do, was hold anyone back from their best work. At the time I was interested in writing on a more regular basis for TexansWire, but Mark knew there was one problem with that potential and he wasn’t comfortable pigeon holing me. Mark was very aware how I had built a reputation for getting some insight into stories before the average fan, and knew that USA Today wouldn’t publish such content without outing where the information came from. Mark could have very well pushed to get me onboard and not let me do what I tend to do best. He point blank told me that he didn’t think it was a smart idea for me to come aboard and instead I should look into creating my own page to continue to grow and fine tune my craft.

I don’t think I have ever respected anyone who told me “no” than I did Mark. Honesty isn’t something I have found a lot of in this space from others, but it was something I could always count on when it came to our conversations. There was always this sense of trust in anything we spoke about.

Mark was such a hard worker, and it often went unnoticed by those who didn’t really know him. Scrolling on X(twitter) yesterday, seeing others speak about their interactions with Mark, it was very apparent that he was very widely respected and will be missed by so many.

Several months back I had the opportunity to interview Tytus Howard and I wasnt sure where I would publish the story. I knew I could have tossed it on here and it wouldn’t have gained much attention, and that would have been ok. Mark got wind of the interview and after reading it, he asked me if he could do me the honor of publishing it on TexansWire because he wanted to make sure as many eyes got to see it as possible. I was stunned by this and absolutely gave him the go ahead. When the article ran, it got the attention of a few other sites who used parts of it to aggregate some Texans content for their site. This was really cool, but what followed was even better. It allowed me to meet and network with some very reputable reporters and two sports agents, all because Mark took a chance on me. Building relationships is something I have always strived for, and he single handedly led me to several very important contacts that have flourished ever since.

Something else Mark did was give John and I the opportunity to launch that little podcast we tried to get off the ground, allowing us to attach it to TexansWire, simply because he believed in us. I genuinely feel like Mark always wanted more for me in this space than I wanted for myself.

I feel as though I owe it to Mark to give this my absolute best effort and turn this little page of mine into a more regular place that I share my thoughts from time to time.

I hope I was able to make you proud brother, I will forever be grateful for the advice, mentorship, encouragement, welcomed critique, and friendship we got to share. Rest easy now Mark, I will miss you.