Looking back on my life, writing has always been a big part of it. Since I was a kid, I have always enjoyed writing but didn’t have anywhere to go with it. I took writing classes in both high school and college, but once those ended, I had no outlet.
Sports have also been a big pillar in my life. Having played and watched them growing up, sports have been there forever and have connected me with a lot of people. Because of this, I had friends and family telling me to try and find a job in sports, but I never really knew where to go with that either.
Combining the two and doing sports writing had always been something I’ve considered but hadn’t really found a way to do, but I knew I wanted to try.
I got my first taste of sports writing through my best friend, Josh. Josh, a student at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, had joined his newspaper our sophomore year of college and had me help him write some of his articles. I remember the first one we did together was about the 2021 World Series and after it was published. He grabbed me the physical copy of the paper and gave it to me. When I read it, I noticed that he put both of our names on it, despite me being a University of Connecticut student. I still have that paper to this day. I helped him think of some other article ideas throughout the rest of the year, but it really sparked my interest in doing something similar at UConn.
I thought about doing so my junior year, but nothing really developed until the involvement fair. There, I ran into the associate sports editor, Stratton Stave, who gave me a quick rundown on the department and what I would be getting myself into. I was fully convinced to join right then.
When I started writing for The Daily Campus in my junior year, I didn’t really know what to expect barely having any experience in sports writing — especially for anything other than baseball. I picked up the women’s hockey beat and had barely, in my life, watched any hockey prior. I had such a great time with the beat, going to games and coming home to write about what I had watched and seeing it in the physical paper the next day. For the next few months, I continued with women’s hockey and decided to start writing articles for my own ideas.
Then, I applied to be a staff writer so I could have my own weekly column — a move that made me commit more time to the department. It was the best decision that I could have made and I am so happy I decided to apply. “The Weekly Reed” was such a fun part of my week for the last year and a half, I always looked forward to writing it.
Now as my undergrad wraps up I have over 90 articles, I’ve seen our school’s first Women’s Hockey East championship, back-to-back 30-win softball seasons (hoping for a third), two national championships and a bowl game in 2022.
I genuinely wish I had joined at least my sophomore year so I could have enjoyed this position even longer. The Daily Campus is a big part of my college experience, and I will always remember the opportunities I was given to work here. I have almost every article I’ve written in print and will continue to save those as memories from my time at The Daily Campus.
Thank you to former sports editors Jon Synott and Stratton for giving me an opportunity to write on a consistent basis as a staff writer here at the Daily Campus; I am truly grateful for that.
Thank you to my friends and family who read most of my articles and really supported me and my writing.
Lastly, thank you to The Daily Campus for giving me a platform to write over the last few years.