Last month, we welcomed a new bumper crop of Brew Hoop contributors whose names you’ve already seen. As excited as that makes me, we made those additions with the bittersweet knowledge that two of our most valuable players were filing their retirement papers with the league office after the season. In their own words...
Gabe Stoltz
Well, I don’t really know how to start this… so, I’m just going to rip the band-aid off. After an amazing ride from 2017 to now, my time at Brew Hoop is coming to an end.
You often
hear the term dream job thrown around. Sometimes, it seems to be fluff and non-existent. However, for me, that term was true, as my time covering the Bucks solidified that.
The beginning of my coverage tenure began before Brew Hoop. After enrolling at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, I quickly became involved with The UWM Post. I began writing about a variety of Panthers sports. I was then able to do what my childhood self never would’ve believed. I got to cover the Milwaukee Bucks.
A year or so before my graduation is when I began writing for Brew Hoop. I had such immense respect for the site after reading it for so many years. Seeing my name on the BH byline was a rush. I was thrilled to have my pieces read by so many Bucks fans.
Despite graduating from UWM in 2018 and finding a full-time job, I was still able to write for Brew Hoop. I was beyond ecstatic. It was a new era of Bucks basketball. I was able to cover the team as they became title contenders. I was able to cover the final days of the Bradley Center and then the beginning of the Fiserv Forum era. I was then extremely fortunate to cover the 2021 championship run—memories that will truly last for a lifetime.
There’ve been countless moments I’ll cherish from my time on the beat. I can’t tell you how many games, press conferences, locker room interviews, and more that I was able to cover. However, they say all good things must come to an end, and this is one of those situations.
Dating back to the fall and the beginning of this past season, life has been hectic, yet fun at the same time. I got married in November. My wife and I then bought a house in February, followed by a honeymoon to Costa Rica five days after. During this time, I also began placing all quotes I gathered from players and coaches in articles rather than my typical transcriptions on Twitter (the messes caused on that platform didn’t warrant my time either).
I also began to realize that working a full-time 8–5 job followed by a game of coverage that goes until midnight (potentially later depending on how Giannis takes in the locker room) was starting to wear me down. I had previously been able to avoid sluggishness in my early 20s, but once I hit 26 years old, the afternoon cups of coffee at the office began to grow in quantity.
I’m now 29, and after all this, life will continue to escalate. As one journey ends, another begins. Come this fall, my wife and I will be welcoming a new Bucks fan into the world, as we’re expecting a baby boy in late November.
It’s been an honor to be a part of this community. To everyone who has read and enjoyed my articles, I sincerely appreciate it. I had the time of my life delivering coverage to you. I always tried my best to bring a fusion of fandom, creativity, humor, and analysis—and always had a joy doing so.
You may see my byline in the future, as I may fill in for a game every now and then. However, that will likely be a rare occasion. My time as a writer at Brew Hoop has officially hit its sunset.
Until next time… thank you.
Riley Feldmann
I didn’t grow up with basketball. It wasn’t something my family had much interest in, and God knows I wasn’t qualified in the least to even try playing it (I got my rear handed to me in tackle football instead—a rite of Smalltown, USA passage). When I eventually came to it as a teenager, it was as a complete novice. Ironically, I leave it now as still something of a layperson.
That’s the beauty of sports.
You can spend over a decade watching, reading, listening, writing, and speaking about something like basketball and still end up confounded by its intricacies. A heady blend of statistical modeling and the indomitable human spirit will do that to you. How you believe player X will combine with player Y under coach Z’s tutelage on paper rarely translates to the real world in the ways you’d expect. Yet rather than throw your hands up at the turbulent translation from theory to practice, you find yourself going back to the drawing board again and again to see what you missed. Take the newest piece of the limitless puzzle board, jam it somewhere that makes a modicum of sense, repeat ad infinitum. Sisyphean? Absolutely. But what in life isn’t?
Here’s the good news: you don’t have to go it alone. We’re blessed to live in a time and place where the like-minded can find one another, swap notes, spread knowledge, and share a laugh or two along the way.
For me, that place of congregation has been Brew Hoop. The thing that stood out about this community when I first joined as a know-nothing 16-year-old was how seamlessly it merged the eager newcomers with those who had suffered under Bucks basketball for decades. Maybe it was a brief confluence of time and place in the history of the internet, but I’d never experienced a forum so welcoming to those with genuine interest, and crucially, so good at keeping you coming back for more. The team had been a laughing stock for so long, yet here were those still sticking it out, believing a better future was out there somewhere. Even better for me, they were willing to take me under their wings while softening the blow of the fatal decision I’d made in signing up to be a fan of the Milwaukee Bucks.
Then, if you can believe it, the team miraculously made good. The Giannis Antetokounmpo draft was the first I’d spent seriously blogging about the team (note: I thought Dennis Schröder and Kelly Olynyk would be good picks in Milwaukee’s range. Not bad for someone who’d rarely dribbled a basketball!). Frank Madden graciously took me on as part of a staff that was in a transition from the original guard to what I now think of as BH’s Second Wave. It would prove to be fortuitous timing on my part: not only did the Bucks start seriously winning, but I arrived on staff just when opportunities to learn and write more were opening up.
You guys know the rest. I never could truly cut it as a film analyst or numbers-knower, but I always enjoyed the process of trying my hand at each. Eventually, I’d find my way by leaning on the extremely outdated mode of narrative sports writing and the new-fashioned medium of podcasting. There will always be regrets about how much more I could have done in trying to live up to the expectations that you, the readers of Brew Hoop, should rightfully demand of us. I’ll always be grateful, though, that my work could find an audience. If you liked what I did, thank you. If you disliked what I did, but met me with constructive criticism, thank you. If you thought I was an idiot and had no compunction in saying so, thank you. I’m not being glib in the least in saying that. Those of us who choose to write in a public space like this are vain, so we cannot exist without feedback. So whether it was positive or negative, your responses let me know there was someone out there who cared. That’s all we ask for.
I’d like to thank all my managing editors over the years who have empowered my whims, corrected my mistakes, and given me the freedom to write that which interested me. I thank all the staffers with whom I shared more than just the masthead, but also abiding friendship.
And last but not least, I thank every single reader and commenter whom I’ve encountered over the years. It was you who gave me the courage to make the leap out of the comments section and onto the site bylines. There are so many things that differentiate us as individuals, but there will always be that one strand that brings us together: basketball.
So it all comes full circle with a gracious return to your ranks, ending where it all began. I take comfort knowing that there is an extremely strong staff ready to take Brew Hoop into the future, blending years of knowledge and experience with youth’s passion and willingness to experiment—like we always have.
Good luck! I’ll be rooting for you all!
While that might be sad news to see our guys move on to bigger and better things, I do have some good news to share: Jackson Gross will now be our beat reporter. You’ve been reading his work here for two years now, while I’ve watched him become a force on our pages and podcast. It was a no-brainer for me when Gabe told me during the season that he’d be stepping down come June: Jackson is our guy. Congratulations to Jackson on his new gig!
But most of all, please join me and the rest of the Brew Hoop staff in a hearty thank you to our friends Gabe and Riley for their many years of devotion to the site. Also, a congrats to Gabe and his wife on their exciting new addition! Personally, I am in their debt for all they’ve done to make this site as good as it is, and I’ll miss reading their work. Gabe is one of the most trusted writers on the beat, and Riley’s eloquence is unmatched around Bucks media. Thank you, guys.
More from brewhoop.com:
- Bucks vs. Bulls Final Score: Milwaukee Buries the Bulls with Strong Second Half, 116-96
- Bucks vs. Timberwolves Final Score: A Twin City Trouncing 116-99
- The new CBA and how it may affect Milwaukee
- Bucks vs. Wizards Recap: Giannis scores career-high 39 in dominating win, 123-96
- Bucks vs. Pistons Final Score: Milwaukee Pounds Pistons in 119-94 Drubbing
