Before my proper broadcast debut for UFC, we had our invariably ceremonial fight week dinner during UFC 309: Jones vs Miocic. After hours of being brought to near-tears and way too many slices of Sicilian pizza, we were headed out on our trek back uptown when I mentioned to him how nervous I was; it was a big moment, and I was already losing sleep a week out.
He looked at me, shrugged his shoulders, and effortlessly said, “Why? You’ll be great. You always are.”
At this point, I had heard that a thousand times. But for maybe the first time, I really believed it.
READ: Obituary For Thomas Gerbasi
TG’s mentorship transformed me from diffident to adept — as a writer, a person, a storyteller — and brought something out of me that was maybe always there, hidden by years of “no’s” and “not good enough’s,” flung around so carelessly and so often that you really start to believe it.
He was a mentor to many; not in the “corporate BS” way with quotas to meet with the advice he gave or time he so generously shared with us, but in the way that truly mattered — helping us all to see the potential we had within, however he did it.
It was probably the same thing that made him a tremendous storyteller — always finding the most poignant stories in the tiniest cracks of the armor we all wield. He never conducted interviews, instead always had conversations. And if you were ever lucky enough to get to hear him tell any story in his arsenal of wild tales in person (did you ever hear about his first and only fight?), you probably ended up with a sore jaw and a six pack from laughing so hard.