The Land Before Time: Thoughts Ahead of Thanksgiving 2025
November 26, 2025
I hope you take some time to reflect on the past year of your life this Thanksgiving. I will. What has changed? What has stayed the same? What surprised you most? I find spending some time on these questions help put things into a perspective that can both show you how far you have come and where to go next. This sort of re-focusing helps a lot. There may not be enough of it in today’s world.
Personally, I have countless things to be thankful for, but right now I want to focus on this little enterprise we call The Land. It was nearly one year ago that we started watching Cavs games on Playback and welcoming all fellow Cleveland sports fans to join us. As I think back on that year, it boggles my mind how much has been accomplished, how much work has been put into it, and how much I have learned. It’s meant a lot to me.
Above all else, I’m thankful for the opportunity to use this to connect with some of my oldest and closest friends. Life quickly gets so busy that it can be hard to properly dedicate time to all the people in life who mean a lot to you. I certainly struggle with that. I prioritize people above all else in my life, yet somehow, I always feel like I am coming up short in the actions that prove that to be the case. Working with my friends on The Land has allowed me to improve a little bit in that department, however, and I’m grateful to them for letting me be a little part of it. It means the world to get to spend some time with them while engaging in something that has been a constant in our lives: our love for Cleveland sports.
Taking that a step further, I’m also thankful that working with my friends has provided me new ways of seeing just how talented and generally awesome they are. Seeing my friends and family succeed brings me a lot of joy, and growing The Land has generated new sources of seeing my friends succeed and only expanded my respect for them.
I’m also thankful for the way in which The Land allows me to continue to engage with the teams I love so much, even as life’s path and priorities continue to expand and create competing needs. That little bit of extra time that I carve out to stay up to date with the Cleveland teams makes me feel like a kid again. It takes me back to a time when ESPN was always on in the background of life, and I probably (definitely) let the performance of Cleveland’s team impact my happiness that day too much. Thank you for the nostalgia.
Finally, I’m thankful for the new community that is emerging around this tiny enterprise. In one year, the community has grown more than I thought it ever would. On top of that, the experiences have far exceeded my expectations. We partnered with Cleveland-based companies. We participated in Cleveland sports podcasts. And we even had Tony Reali himself host an ATH-style duel in our Playback room! To see new fans come into the fold and enthusiastically engage with the community makes the effort worth it. I’ve heard stories that I would have never heard otherwise. I’ve met people I would have never met otherwise. And I’ve seen a small community that consistently shows up emerge, connect, and bond over our Cleveland teams. That is what sports is all about. Thank you, Landinos.
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