Hello, World
I want to play golf at Ohio State.
As far as aspirations go, that’s the first one I can ever remember having. I was a little kid, probably around the age of that handsome seven-year old in the picture at the top of this post.
I wasn’t a big kid like my two older brothers and younger step brother, and I didn’t have the natural elegance and grace of my younger sister. Even now, I’m painfully half an inch away from six-foot status. That absolutely does not bother me, by the way. Tremendously unbothered by that. I also didn’t grow my hair out and spike it a little bit… so that I could consciously lie and say I was six foot on an important government identification.
That would be insane.
But that’s the funny thing about aspirations. They make you do funny things. Sure I want to be six foot, but I’ve accepted that I am not (and I have an updated drivers licence to back it up). I didn’t play golf at Ohio State either, but I found a way to be involved with that great university in a way I never could have fathomed.
I’d like to tell you that story.
I primarily grew up in a house without a father, but in his absence were two of the best older brothers a young kid could ask for — as well as a mother who had the best of intentions and an even better heart. In a lot of ways, my dad was and remains the strongest man I know.
But without a father in my physical house, I looked for role models. That’s why it was tough for a kid like me to make sense of the John Cooper era at Ohio State.
Football was a part of my life the exact same way it is for most kids growing up in Ohio. Every spare moment after school, my brothers and I played football with our neighborhood friends. When we couldn’t play outside, we played an indoor version called “Regimbal football.” Our poor mother only had to pull one child out of the literal active fireplace in our living room (still sorry about that, Mike).
Football was so commonplace in our neighborhood, the Akron Beacon Journal sent a reporter and photographer out to cover our shenanigans. True story.
I certainly wanted to be a football player as talented as my brothers, or dare I say, those Scarlet and Gray Buckeyes — but my genetic makeup left me at a disadvantage. I was definitely the runt of the Regimbal litter, so as much as I wanted to make it happen, football was not something I excelled at.
Golf was, though.
Golf was always the great equalizer for me. It didn’t matter how big or strong my brothers were — when a golf club was in our hands, it became a game of finesse. And finesse is something I’ve always possessed.
So while my brothers went on to be the stars of our school football and basketball teams, I remained in the yard, mapping out golf course designs in our less-than-half-acre yard. All the while, I still loved Ohio State and watched every team I could: football, basketball… golf.
That last one is a bit of a stretch. I didn’t get to watch the Ohio State golf team because the Big Ten Network was just a gleam in Jim Delany’s eye back in the 90s. But I did get to watch the second greatest golfer of all time right down the road.
You probably know that guy by his name, “Tiger.” Tiger Woods made the local country club gem, Firestone, his personal playground during my childhood. When Akron’s finest was a stop on the PGA Tour, a young David Regimbal could be found prowling the ropes alongside Tiger wearing an oversized “I am Tiger Woods” Nike t-shirt.
Eight times. Tiger victoriously strolled through my backyard eight times. Over the years he collected five more victories in Columbus at… Jack’s place. Most people don’t appreciate that nearly 16 percent of Tiger’s victories came in the Buckeye state.
But even then, I knew Tiger was chasing the greatness Jack Nicklaus had already achieved. And in my book, he needs 70 total tour victories ~ outside of this great state ~ to truly be the greatest.
Just one win away.
Jack vs Tiger is not a debate for me… until it is.
The fact that Jack Nicklaus attended the college I idolized made him an easy role model. He had everything a kid like me could ask for. He had the best job in the world, he wore the right colors, and his playground (Columbus, Ohio) is the one I wanted to play in.
Here’s where I’ll fast forward to my college decision. It was an easy one: Ohio State. This was in 2005, of course, when the admissions office was asleep at the wheel. One tour and I was sold, but life has a way of laughing in your face when you’re on the brink of getting everything you want.
I mentioned my mother. She made cancer her bitch. Unfortunately that was around the time I was making my college decision, and I didn’t want to move away during such a critical time. It all worked out though. I worked in an authentic Italian kitchen and learned the basics, while completing one staggeringly amazing semester at Kent State.
That’s where my academic career ended and my literal one started. I got a corporate job doing sales and spent time with my family. My oldest brother Matt took me to my first ever Ohio State football game during the 2006 season. Either my brother or God knew I needed it. He picked the perfect game, too. Minnesota. The Buckeyes shut the Gophers out in a memorable matchup. Some of you may still remember the sound of that hit Ray Small took. I remember watching his soul leave his body from the C-deck.
Another reason that game was notable, however, is because Jack Nicklaus was there to dot the “i” at halftime. Like I said, either my brother or God knew I needed that.
My sales career wasn’t taking off the way I had hoped, and the owner at that company pushed me to find something different. I always enjoyed writing, so I started begging any website that would listen to let me intern. I got my first byline at a site called Bucks Insider, and that gave me a foot in the door with The Cleveland Fan.
I was off and running then. Over the following decade I secured bylines on several SB Nation sites before Bleacher Report recruited me to be its lead Ohio State football writer. All of that was cool, but the crown jewel of my writing career will always be the work I did (and the time I spent) with Eleven Warriors. In fact, it’s Ramzy’s fault you’re reading this post, actually. His writing has always inspired me.
The amount of cooooooking Eleven Warriors allowed me to do 😮💨
But by the time I hung up the ole’ writing pen… er… keyboard in 2021, I was left with… a career I never could have fathomed as a college dropout.
That brings us to current day. Today I am the founder and acting intern of Sonda Green LLC, a business that was started in a month like some kind of black/gold/green fever dream.
That’s the funny thing about aspirations. They don’t really die. They can fade. They can morph. Most often, they just hibernate. But unlike a bear, they don’t shrink — they grow.
For the first 18 years of my life, I wanted to golf at Ohio State. The following 18 years, I golfed and “went to” Ohio State… just in a different way than I imagined initially.
And so now I’m asking myself what I want the next 18 years of my life to look like. Some day I want to retire, but that’s probably… 18 years away. Today’s aspiration has to be something that propels me to that reality.
Some day I’ll be green. That’s why I’m always going to post on Sundays moving forward.
The day for closers.
The day for…
Sonda (Sunday) Green.
So what is Sonda Green? It’s a question a lot of people have asked me. And that’s one of the few questions I can answer with confidence right now.
Sonda Green is the home for my tired but somehow reinvigorated aspirations. I didn’t want it to see the light of day for quite some time, but a violent and unexpected push away from the career I built put it in the spotlight.
Sonda Green is my two primary passions, food and golf, wrapped into one chaotic package.
So I guess… Hello, world. My name is David, and I’m a 5’11.5” product designer who loves to golf and cook. And I personally don’t care what your passions are — I can just guarantee that if you invite me into your kitchen, the two of us will find a way to cook up something pretty special.
