I’m Justin Meyer, editor-in-chief of Nothing But Nylon, and for about three years, NBN has been my life.
That’s not all my life has been about since the middle of 2018, but it sure has been a good chunk. The behind-the-scenes work to bring Nothing But Nylon to life began in the second half of 2018, and we finally started publishing in February 2019. In the time since, I have written several hundreds of articles, interviewed countless people, covered TBT twice, a handful of college basketball games, a handful of high school basketball games, and achieved my dream of covering what I want, when I want.
It’s been an immense struggle, though. Money has not been plentiful, and resources as a whole have been minimal. For the last year, it has been essentially just me running everything but the tech side on Nothing But Nylon, from writing to editing to social media and more. Slowly, the traffic has ticked up, and slowly, the site has improved.
But that changes now. All the work, love, and dedication I put into Nothing But Nylon these three long years have paid off – we are now powered by Fivestar App!
This means many things. One, job security for me, which is truly a wild thing to experience after living with such unknowns for years (I even have health insurance now!); two, resources to expand our operation and do excellent reporting; and three, open up new possibilities for me as I’m now the editor-in-chief of not only Nothing But Nylon and Lacrosse All Stars, as I have been since October 2020, but also the new Fivestar News website, which covers a wider range of sports with a focus on athletes and their experiences.
It’s funny – when I was in college at Maryland, I was the editor-in-chief of The Left Bench, a sports website I co-founded with two of my friends who were also rejected by The Diamondback, the student newspaper. Even as we were growing that and I handled the entire written side of the operation, I still maintained that reporting, not managing or editing, were what I wanted to do. Even when my professor and mentor, George Solomon, who was the sports editor at The Washington Post for decades, told me that I could do managing editing, I questioned why. I was a reporter, damn it, that’s what I am!
Turns out I was wrong. I enjoy reporting, and it’s something I have done with Nothing But Nylon and Lacrosse All Stars and will do in an even greater capacity now with Fivestar backing. But it’s not what I want my job solely to be. I want to create content plans and calendars. I want to assign articles to contributors. I want to control the operation. I want to be an editor-in-chief.
It’s only now a few years removed from college that I’ve realized this, but it’s been true all along. All the work I’ve done leading up to this point and how I’ve felt about it proves that. And now, at age 26, I am the editor-in-chief of three meaningful publications, something that would traditionally take decades to achieve.
So, I have to thank anyone and everyone who has supported me in any sense these last three years, not to mention in the many years before Nothing But Nylon was created. From my parents, family, and girlfriend to my professors to my business partners, thank you so very much. To any NBN religious readers, thank you so very much. To anyone who has been to NBN just one time and clicked away within seconds, thank you so very much. Without all of the thousands of people who have believed in me, trusted Nothing But Nylon for basketball coverage and knowledge, and instilled important life, professional, and ethical lessons in me over the years, this wouldn’t have happened. Yes, I worked hard, but I don’t have that opportunity without a lot of people also working very hard to ensure I can have this chance.
And to those who didn’t believe in me over the many years I’ve dedicated myself to sports reporting (of which there there have been several): thank you so very much. You were incredibly motivating.
Don’t let people tell you what you can and can’t do. There might be barriers, it might be very difficult, and it might take years, but anything is possible. There’s no guarantee things will work out, but it is guaranteed if you give up. If you really want something and think it could happen, then even when things are at their toughest, you have to persevere. Nothing worthwhile ever comes easily.
