To boost sports coverage in an area rich with gaming tradition, the Tahoe Daily Tribune took a gamble and turned over an ace.

Dan Thomas, 25, accepted the job as the Tribune’s new sports reporter, and reported to work Sunday. A 1996 graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and its nationally ranked school of journalism and mass communication, he brings nearly five years of newspaper and magazine experience to the position, complementing veteran sports editor Steve Yingling.

“I’m really fired up about the opportunity,” Thomas said. “For me, it’s just an opportunity to continue the adventure that started a couple of years ago in Colorado. There’s so much to do, so much to cover, I can’t wait to get out there and get after it.”

A native of Blacksburg, Va., Thomas comes off a two-and-a-half-year stint as a sports reporter for The Vail Trail weekly and helped launch The Daily Trail last June. In two years, he has covered nearly every sport imaginable, from the 1999 World Alpine Ski Championships and the world’s second-largest lacrosse tournament to Colorado 2A and 3A preps. Before that, he worked as a general assignment reporter and photographer for The Daily News in Eden, N.C., building solid experience on his internships at insideCAROLINA magazine and The Daily Tar Heel newspaper in college.

“I really love what I do,” he said. “Sports practically is the only realm you can write about where people still get out and do things, not just talk, vote, or pass resolutions. That’s why football or soccer practice is just as important to me as the sporting events that draw the world to our community.”

To welcome Thomas to the community or talk about local sports, you can reach him at (530) 542-8014.