Football, cricket, type one diabetes and a university degree that didn’t land him a job: Jack Gabriel’s story is a tale of endurance and learning from his biggest mistake.

Jack Gabriel sits on a hospital bed alongside his parents. The tears are streaming down his face. The tears are streaming down his parents’ faces. 

The doctor has just informed 12-year-old Gabriel that he won’t be able to play competitive sport again. “You have type one diabetes,” the doctor says. It’s the end of Jack Gabriel’s dream of being a pro footballer. 

A sporting career wasn’t the only option for young Jack, but it was the one he wanted most. He had played football and cricket through his school years. 

He was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes after being rushed to the Leicester Royal Infirmary. They measured his blood sugar levels. A normal reading would be between four and seven. Jack’s reading was 44.9. “The doctors said ten minutes later and I would have been in a coma,” says Jack. “I didn’t even know what Diabetes was.”

The playing dream was over. 

But Jack still wanted to be a part of sport somehow. He remembered the old match reports he had written at age nine for his school team back in Wigston. His English was neat. He read. He knew how to use a comma. He started writing again. 

Jack had to find how he could be back involved with sport again. An idea came to him. If he couldn’t play, then he would write about it on the sidelines.

The writing would soon begin again and he would often send things to Leicester Mercury football journalist Rob Tanner with varying degrees of response. Jack was also a regular on online Leicester City fan forums.

He wanted to be a sports journalist and based all of his sixth form studies to forge that career path. He left with A-Levels in Media, English Language and History.

His next step was to spend three years at De Montfort University on their journalism course in 2015. “It was harder than I thought,” said Jack, who didn’t expect the jump between A-levels and his first year at university.

Even though he was on a journalism course, Jack’s specialty was sports journalism. It was the main driver for him. So when that module came around, he threw himself into it with a newfound confidence and got a first in it. 

He graduated with a 2:1 in 2018 and expected to get thrown into a job with ease. However, Jack found out that having a degree did not mean he could walk into any job. It was the work outside that would set him apart.

There was very little work in his portfolio at the end of his studies, and it came back to bite him hard. There were no job offers for Jack, no employers swarming his emails asking him to work for their business. In fact his emails were full of rejection.

The next two years Jack had to spend creating the portfolio he should have done when studying. He had to do odd jobs that were unpaid just to make a name for himself. 

Eventually, his work would pay off as his job application at the Leicestershire County Cricket Club’s media department would be accepted. “I’ve never had a feeling of relief like that,” says Jack.

The hours were ridiculously long and the workload that Jack had in the overstretched media department was gigantic. Jack had burnout but had no one time to deal with it. No one could do what he did. 

It was too much and Jack made the decision to move away from the cricket club after four years of extremely hard work. He could no longer deal with his workload as well as managing burnout and his diabetes. 

“I don’t think I'll ever work harder than that” says Jack, reflecting on his time at LCCC. 

His next step in his career would lead him to Derby County football club and his current role as deputy head of communications. A bigger role with more staff and a workload that was more manageable, a perfect role for Jack. 

He isn’t on the field as part of the playing team like his younger self once dreamed of. He isn’t the one grabbing the headlines every week. But Jack Gabriel goes into work everyday knowing that his diabetes diagnosis back at 12-years-old never stopped him from being in the sport he loves.