The Washington Daily News welcomed South Bend, Ind., native Tony Black to the newsroom staff this week.

Black comes to the Daily News from sports background: a 2004 graduate of University of Southern Indiana, he’s covered sports for Northwest Missouri State and, most recently, University of Notre Dame. But a desire to broaden his journalism experience, and reach out to a larger community, led him to eastern North Carolina.

“Everybody’s got a story. I think it’ll be fun to tell random people’s stories and get the word out about their idea for this community or what their passion for this community is,” Black said. “I like politics, but I’ve never written about politics, so that’ll be interesting to sit there in city council meetings and party meetings and finding the stories in those meetings.”

Black will be taking on some local politics, in addition to covering nonprofits and business news for the Daily News. He said he’s looking forward to the challenge of covering local community news.

“(Sports writing) can be fun, but it’s very exhausting to have your life revolve around teams, all the games and being on the road,” Black said. “You start looking at sports in a different light. You forget how to be a fan. Going to a Cubs game, I’d forget — oh, yeah, I can cheer here.”

A fourth generation, lifelong — and long-suffering — Chicago Cubs fan, Black grew up in the shadow of Notre Dame, so, of course, Notre Dame is also on his list of teams. While he said in his down time he normally likes to simply kick back and relax, for the foreseeable future, he has a new hobby: “Here, it’ll be exploring — learning about this place.

“I’m looking forward to learning about Washington and the surrounding communities. I’ve enjoyed walking around town in this beautiful weather and looking at all the history around here,” he said.