Long Live Andrew Luberda- One Of Us

Just before 4:30 this morning, I received a text message that I'd been dreading for the last couple of days.

"Andy passed."

Andrew Luberda- a husband, a father, a friend, an east valley sportswriter, and a co-owner of this website, died alone, on a ventilator, at a hospital on the Pinal/Maricopa county line, The same county line that inspired the name for the prep sports website he had founded.

Andy Luberda loved his wife and son fiercely. When he was first hospitalized, he was days from leaving Arizona behind to join the rest of his family in Kentucky, where they'd been living for the past few months.

Many of the long, winding conversations Andy and I would have on the phone in the months of isolation created by the spread of the virus, were spent in reflection about what it means to truly be part a family. Andy and I shared a vision to make ArizonaVarsity run like a family, but both of us had had our own experiences of what a family shouldn't be, and wanted to make sure that this website and its community of contributors felt valued.

You see, Andy wanted to make us all part of his family. When he wrote a story about an athlete, like the incredible piece he put together about Gilbert alum Thayne Jackson, he didn't just move on to the next one. He cherished the opportunity to interact, and be let in. He felt the enormous responsibility of the privilege to be the one who shared the story of another. And once he wrote about you, he rooted for you. Unabashedly. Privately he worried that it made him seem like less of a "true journalist," but he knew that part of him would never change.

More than anything, Andy cherished community. He wanted desperately to belong, and believed that it was incumbent upon him to continuously prove himself to others.

I can't lie, this was one of his more frustrating characteristics.

Especially when Andy Luberda was eager to accept anyone for who they were, and was abundantly generous with his time and attention. He wholeheartedly believed in, and was constantly inspired by others. He never missed an opportunity to build someone up and make them feel seen.

Andy Luberda was a living, breathing community builder. An enhancement to everything and anyone around him. His struggle was always to feel worthy of the love and benefit that emanated from the communities that he poured into.

It never showed more than in the days in which he was battling Covid-19. I ask myself why he stayed so private? Why he didn't allow us to share in his burdens and fears?

But I know the answer. He never kicked the imposter syndrome that made him look at the communities he was part of and feel as though he wasn't quite one of us, and still had more to prove.

It's the reason he continued to cover games and teams in person in a region full of people that couldn't be bothered to take potentially life-saving precautions. He didn't feel safe. He told me as much. He knew he was at risk. But in his mind, if he didn't edify these coaches and kids in the southeast valley in the way that he felt they deserved, who would?

Well Andy, I can't say this to you directly now, but I hope that in some way you can hear me.

You are one of us. You owed us nothing. You gave us everything.

My heart breaks for Chilly and for Eric Sorenson, whom I know you loved as if they were your own blood. And for Travis Schureman, whom you shared a once-in-a-lifetime human connection with. I hope that all of the people you impacted in your time here can live in a way that shows your wife and son all that you meant to us. That even if you couldn't always accept that you were accepted, that it's not up to you to decide whether or not you were worthy of our love and respect. That's up to us. And we're going to miss you, brother.