When I told friends from home I was going to NYU to study journalism, it made sense from the outside. The media capital of the world, too many outlets to count — from the big flashy ones, to the local papers covering specific neighborhoods around town. Why would I go anywhere else?

Then I specified that I wanted to write about sports. Eyebrows were raised, and there were a few more pauses before the replies came back. Besides New York being a primarily baseball, basketball and American football town, I had no prior writing experience, I didn’t know about any sports other than the one you use your foot with and famously, NYU isn’t an NCAA Division I school. 

It wasn’t even something I was sure about myself. The running joke was, and still is, that most people don’t know we have varsity athletes. Or even athletic facilities.

I was dragged to my first pitch meeting for the student newspaper, and it wasn’t even for sports. I spent four hours on a Saturday afternoon walking around lower Manhattan looking for the six best doughnuts, and I had the time of my life, to be honest. Something about it gave me the same feeling I had moved to New York City for — some mystical sense of wonder that made me feel like I was a part of something bigger than myself. It’s why I played soccer all my life and I wanted to capture that feeling in a way.

At the time, there wasn’t regular production of sports content at the paper and the desk pitch meetings were small affairs with barely more than two regular writers besides me. Maybe it was brilliant timing or sheer luck, but WSN needed more sports writers to expand its coverage, and I was hired to do so. I never thought I’d cover volleyball as extensively as I have, and never ever saw myself doing interviews that would be published on Spotify.

I found my community and family in that newsroom as I attempted to get the newspaper’s sports coverage back up — and I would like to think I helped others too.