Massive Introduction: Devin Weisbarth

Editor’s note: As Massive Report expands its staff, we will introduce each new member by having them write a little something about themselves to help the MR community get to know them. Who are they? What’s their soccer background? How long have they been a fan of the Crew? Whatever they want to share to introduce themselves to our great and loyal readers. Today we introduce Devin Weisbarth.

Hello, Massive Report readers! I hail from Akron, Ohio, and have been a lifelong Columbus Crew fan (literally, my whole life, as I was born in 1999). I am currently in my last semester of college at Thiel College in Greenville, Pennsylvania, majoring in Sports Management and Sports Journalism/Broadcasting.

I have played soccer pretty much my whole life, starting when I was three years old. I played all throughout youth and high school and was one of the lucky ones to be able to play at the collegiate level, where I was a three-year starter as a goalkeeper. Oh, and yes, I am a West Ham supporter. I respected the loyalty and the way that Mark Noble carried himself, and I thought to myself, “this is someone that I want to model myself as.”

Growing up, I watched the Crew anytime they were on the television. But it took me a while to get the opportunity to see the Black & Gold in person. The first Crew game I ever attended was the match on Aug. 11, 2018, against the Houston Dynamo. Since then, I have been to many matches. I was at the farewell to historic Crew Stadium, and I was also in attendance for the first match at Lower.com Field. This was exactly one week before I left for college (never too late to go to your first match!) and I remember going to that game watching everything former Crew goalkeeper Zack Steffen did, from pre-game to the way he talked on the field, to postgame.

As a kid, I remember I would mute not just Crew games, but any Northeast Ohio teams, like the Cleveland Cavaliers and Cleveland Browns games, and I would do play-by-play. I wanted to do broadcast journalism up until my sophomore year of college. Once I got to college, I realized that I wanted to do more writing than I wanted to be on camera, and thus, I switched to sports journalism instead of sports broadcasting.

I am super excited to be a part of this amazing staff and to be more involved in the Black & Gold community. I have been a Massive Report reader for a couple of years, and now I get to write for them! I hope that I get to meet a lot of you, and as always, Go Crew!