Staving off the Apathy

My name is Josh Finney, and i'll be (one of the) newest writers here at Dawgs By Nature, the last great bastion of optimism regarding the Cleveland Browns anywhere on the internet.

I'm extraordinarily glad to be a member of the team for DBN. I have great respect for the staff writers that have been toiling on this site, and I've been a huge fan and staunch supporter of the SB Nation platform. I think that national beat reporting has become stale over the last few years, and i'm glad to see insightful and current writing still exists where both the casual and die hard fan can enjoy it.

I'm originally a Lakewood, OH native, and left after a year of school at Akron to serve 9 years in the Navy on submarine duty. I attended school at Eastern Connecticut (Lets go......bollocks, I don't even remember the mascot there. Colonials? Wildbirds? Human Beings?) and had to live through the glory days of the New England sports scene. (After the tremendous success enjoyed by the REDSAWX, Patriots, and Celtics, even the most reasonable of Boston fan became a completely insufferable blow hard) I consider myself something of a good luck charm; everywhere I have lived (LA in the 80's, Cleveland in the 90's,and the greater Boston area in the 00's) experienced unprecedented success from their major sports outlets. (It was nice that the players followed me, as well; Orel Hershiser came to Cleveland, Manny Ramirez came to Boston, and the zombie Browns live just up the road!)

I've been living in DC for the last 3 years, where i'll more or less be, permanently. The sports fans here are spiritual brothers and sisters to the Cleveland community, because DC teams (until recently) have also been terrible. It's a great sports town because very few people are from DC; sports refugees land here from all over the country.

I'm an extremely passionate Cleveland sports fan, and i'm grateful to have a community to share my love with. My wife is probably more than saturated with Browns related talk, but has been patient throughout; it doesn't hurt that she's a Redskins fans and got to watch her team humiliate us, in person, in December.

Some of my stories may be richer on humor than statistics, and there will be liberal references to food, beer, and what it is to be considered a "quality fan". I welcome creative discourse, and I will always be exceptionally grateful for the inputs and perspectives of others. Remember, the fact that we're passionate means we still care.....and the only other avenue is apathy.

Again, thanks for having me.

Josh