Hayden Grove left sports reporting to pursue music, and his new song, “Put On a Smile,” carries a message he wishes someone had given him years ago.
WESTLAKE, Ohio — Walk into Hayden Grove’s apartment and you walk into two worlds: Jim Thome, LeBron James, Kevin Love; Frank Sinatra, Bobby Darin, Michael Bublé.
His heroes, from the press box and the stage, share the same walls. On his bedstand sits a handwritten note from his dad.
“The measure of a man is less about what one does than how one does it and you do it all so well,” it reads. “From your most admiring fan with love, Dad.”
And above his desk, a painted portrait of his grandfather — the Cleveland native who brought a kid from Fort Lauderdale straight to the heart of this city.
“He always told me, ‘Do your best,’” Grove said. “So I just look up and he’s like, ‘Do your best today, that’s all you can do.’”
Cleveland knew one side of him
For years, Cleveland knew Grove as the sports reporter at Cleveland.com — the guy who gave fans a front-row seat to LeBron’s championship run, the Guardians, the Browns, and Ohio State’s national title.
“I knew my audience,” he said. “It wasn’t always super sporty people. I think it was people from Denver, Colorado, that wanted to feel like they were home for a little bit.”
What his audience never saw was what he was carrying.
What they couldn’t see
Grove was diagnosed in high school with depression, anxiety, and OCD. He arrived at Ohio State already struggling — but the weight of covering the Buckeyes as a senior brought him to a breaking point.
“I walked into the advisor’s office; I was in tears,” he said. “I was like, ‘I can’t do this. I know it’s the dream of so many people to be in this position and I know it’s so good, but I can’t do it.’”
The pressure, combined with his mental health struggles, led to a battle he rarely discussed publicly — one that developed into anorexia.
Grove is open about it now, particularly because male eating disorders are so rarely part of the conversation.
“My dad is the person who kind of took the taboo out of it for me because he’s a medical professional,” Grove said. “If you just take it from a biological level, then it does take all the taboo out of it. It’s just like any other thing. You have diabetes, you need insulin; you have a headache, you need Advil. It’s just hard because there’s no … if you have a cut, you can get stitches. You can see it, right?”
Until someone else said it first
Grove kept his struggles mostly to himself — until Kevin Love said out loud what Hayden had only said to himself.
“Kevin Love made that possible,” Grove said. “NBA champion, has a model girlfriend, has millions of dollars, is playing the sport that he loves — he’s got everything, and he’s still struggling, and he’s helping people. He helped me, and I was like, ‘Well, maybe not yet, but eventually I need to tell my story.’”
The two met privately after practice one day, just the two of them in an empty gym in Independence.
“It was just me and him, just talking about life, about our brains, and that we have a responsibility,” Grove said. “It’s a responsibility to help others.”
Not dead — reborn
Before any of this, there was music. The darkness took that first.
“I thought that part of my life was over. I really did. I thought the dream was dead,” Grove said. “And God had a way of saying, ‘No, it’s not dead.’”
Slowly, the music came back: gigs here and there, TikTok videos. Then one day, a notification stopped him cold.
“‘Michael Bublé follows you,’” Grove recalled. “And I was like, ‘Oh, that’s another spam account.’ And I looked and he had the blue check and I was like, ‘Whoa.’ I literally fell off my chair.”
Falling off his chair was just the beginning. On Sept. 1, 2022, Bublé called Grove out by name in front of a Pittsburgh arena crowd — spelling out his social media handle and telling fans to follow him.
“You talk about a confidence boost,” Grove said. “That’s about as big as it gets.”
Bigger still was what came next. On his 32nd birthday, Grove made his national television debut on NBC’s “The Voice,” performing “Mack the Knife” — the same song he sang at his sixth grade talent show — for coaches John Legend, Kelsea Ballerini, Adam Levine, and Bublé himself.
“There was so much you didn’t see in the audition,” Grove said. “He wanted me to sing another song for the coaches, and he was so complimentary of everything. He’s like, ‘Tell him where you work, tell him you’re a sports reporter.’ He was like introducing me to everybody. It was the most cool thing ever.”
“The Voice” didn’t hand him a trophy; it handed him something better.
“If God brought me back to music this far, I think he wants me to be back in it for sure,” Grove said.
Feb. 28, 2025 was his last day at Cleveland.com.
“I told (editor) Chris (Quinn), ‘I think this is my time. I’ve loved this job. I’ve given everything to this job,’” he said. “And I was like, ‘It’s time to pursue another dream.’”
A message a lot of people need to hear
That dream now has a soundtrack, with Grove’s new song “Put On a Smile” dropping on May 1. It’s upbeat — playful, even. That’s the whole point.
“So many mental health songs are just so dark,” he said. “I was like, ‘What if we make this a really fun and positive song about mental health?’”
The chorus says what Grove wishes someone had said to him years ago:
“Put on a smile for the whole wide world to see, fake it till you make it, don’t you show them how you feel — is what people would say.
But then — I’m feeling low, need somewhere to go, that’s all you have to say.”
It’s a message he carries with him every single day — because the battle never truly ends.
“I need it. I had a really rough week last week, and it felt like I was back 10 years ago,” Grove said. “This isn’t gone — it’s still going on every single day.”
“I’m a Christian, I’m a Catholic,” he answered. “Mine is Jesus Christ and mine is Catholicism, and that’s who gets me through.”
The walls still tell the story
These days, Grove’s schedule is as full as those walls: voice lessons for kids in Lorain once a week, performances across Northeast Ohio, a collaboration with one of Bublé’s horn players dropping later this summer.
And on May 1 — the same day his song released — he boarded a plane to South Africa to perform with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, one of the bands that made Frank Sinatra famous. Not bad for a kid from Fort Lauderdale who once thought the dream was dead.
“I do it for the 7-year-old boy that I was,” Grove said. “There are millions of kids that are him. If you’re feeling weird, just talk to somebody. You’re not alone.”
Hayden Grove’s new song is available wherever you stream music. Click HERE for more information.
For eating disorder support, the National Alliance for Eating Disorders helpline is 866-662-1235.
For mental health crisis support, the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is available by calling or texting 988.
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