After 10 years, 4 months and a few days, I left USA TODAY at the end of March 2010. In my time there, I wrote about soccer, mixed martial arts and Olympic sports. I edited the online sections for soccer, boxing/MMA, Olympics, golf, hockey, high school sports and horse racing. (Not all at the same time, but many at the same time.) I dug into the technical side to help with IT work on our automated stats and scores. And I was a guinea pig on blogs, backpack journalism (with video), Twitter and some other things I’ve probably blocked from my memory.

I learned plenty and met people I’ll never forget, but it was a good time to go. I left after the Vancouver Games, for which I was the Nordic/biathlon beat writer after being called in to take over the online prep work with three months to go. I have other projects I want to pursue, and I hope to continue the most enjoyable part of my job — writing — as a freelancer.

The rest of my agenda, in no particular order:

• My new blog, sportsmyriad.com
• More family time
• Promoting my book, Long-Range Goals, The Success Story of Major League Soccer
• Working on another book, likely comparing sports fans across cultures and generations
• Starting a blog not related to sports. Details tba and tentative
• Freelancing elsewhere

If you want to hire me as a freelancer but failed to catch any of my writing for the national newspaper and its Web site, you might want to check out my work portfolio.

A few highlights, not necessarily the very best of my work (others can judge that) but offering a wide sampling:

• Feature with video: Mixed martial arts fighters often play a weighing game
• Feature with video: Women’s jumpers still hoping for flight in 2010 Games
• Feature with multimedia: Eight venues, one day: An Olympic odyssey
• Feature with unexpected interviews: Iceland eyes gold medal in handball
• Feature/scene piece: At Whistler, there’s just no party like a biathlon party
• Feature: Refs face tough calls in mixed martial arts
• Feature: Fighters’ entrance music gets brawlers in the mood
• Feature: On the field, Landon Donovan is showing a lot of game
• Feature: Maykel Galindo’s road from Cuba to Chivas USA
• Event story: Demong, Spillane give USA 1-2 finish in Nordic combined
• Game story: Weight lifted with U.S. soccer victory, gold
  
• Game story: Donovan answers D.C. fans’ taunts in 5-2 Galaxy win
• Interview: Clausen walking tall to third Olympics
• Interview: Wit keeps serious swimmers in sync
• Column: USA is a legitimate, if peculiar, soccer nation
• Column: The world’s game is needed more than ever

First part of the e-mail address is duresport. Then gmail.