Sitting comfortably dressed in a light blue football jersey and baggy jeans, Giardina, who is now 21, speaks of his life with almost a hint of boredom in his voice. He does not move, except to shake his right hand a little to signal when he thinks something is important and should be noted. But get him talking about sports, and the man is a fountain of interesting information, funny anecdotes and energetic movement. His love for sports is what is leading him into the field of journalism, and what will ultimately make his dream career of being a sports journalist, a dream come true.
Giardina has lived in Bensonhurst all his life. He lives with his parents, and has three older brothers. Even while talking about his family, he cannot help but include athletic tidbits. When Giardina and his brothers were younger, they showed him how to swing a bat, but Giardina admits that he learned by mostly watching them and playing with them. “I learned a lot about sports from my brothers. But now, I’m better than them in most sports. It’s good to get some revenge.” He grins.
It’s not a surprise that his main hobbies are anything sports related. While watching sports on the television, Giardina gets extremely excited. “He gets really into the game when he is watching. If the team he’s rooting for is doing badly, he gets depressed and mad. If they do well, he’s happy,” said his older brother Phil Giardina. When Phil and Michael were younger, they used to play with other kids out in the streets. Streetlights, which resemble goal posts, made football the game to play. However, these days, they get together at the park and play basketball.
Giardina not only watches sports with his family, he watches with his girlfriend of three years, Taryn Byrnes. “We watch and go to many sporting events together. He will go to almost any game he can get tickets for,” she said. Giardina, who was extremely happy about the recent success of the Mets, hopes to get future tickets for their games.
Talking about sports brings a smile to his face, and writing about them does just the same. Giardina’s dream career is to be a sports journalist covering the most exciting games. “I want to be in the middle of it and know everything first before anybody else does. There is a power in that,” he said. In ten years, he hopes to be working for ESPN magazine, covering the Mets and the Jets, his two favorite New York teams. “This would not just be a job for him. Rather, he’ll be doing something he loves and will be able to put a lot of knowledge and effort into it,” said Byrnes.
Giardina’s family firmly believes that he will be successful combining his favorite activity and his love for writing. “He will be just like Ray Barone from Everybody Loves Raymond,” said Phil Giardina, comparing his brother to the successful sports journalist played by Ray Romano on the hit TV show. But in this case, they all love Michael.
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