2008 Woodie Awards
Regaining focus: an editor's last thoughts
Jeremy Rice, Collegian Staff
Issue date: 5/12/08 Section: Sports
I never imagined it would be this way, but my senior year of college has been the most difficult eight months of my life.
I guess seeing your father get sent off to prison and losing the love of your life in the span of two months will do that to you. But this column is not about that. It's about the fact that I am still here. I'm still the sports editor for the Massachusetts Daily Collegian, and I will be until I officially graduate on May 24.
It's funny how life will take a turn for the worse right when you think it's about to get better than it's ever been, but that's just how it happened this time. I was finally doing what I had set out to do since I started writing for my high school paper in 10th grade. I was covering football and had become sports editor at my college newspaper.
From the time I was covering the same team in high school that I played for (a brand-new program that barely won any games) to finding out UMass skier Rush Hawkins got his name from his great-grandfather, who was a general in the Union Army in the Civil War, everything I had done had been with one goal in mind: one day I would cover football.
Getting to know Rush became my first big break in the journalism world. It was because of him that I broke the story about the ski team's coach getting fired; and because of that story, I was able to write a complete history of the program, talk to former and current coaches, athletes and even the athletic director. The thrill of following that story from start to completion told me for the first time that I was in the right field.
I worked my way up the ranks from field hockey to skiing to softball to soccer to hockey before my chance came in my third year with the Collegian. I was here, driving to road games, writing game wraps and side bars and finally really seeing my future ahead of me.
That's when my life seemed to fall apart. In November 2007, I fell into a depression for several months and lost sight of everything for which I worked. My job at ESPN.com, my position as sports editor, my grades and my life just seemed less important. I even considered stepping down at the Collegian because I could feel that my heart just wasn't in it like it had been before.
I guess seeing your father get sent off to prison and losing the love of your life in the span of two months will do that to you. But this column is not about that. It's about the fact that I am still here. I'm still the sports editor for the Massachusetts Daily Collegian, and I will be until I officially graduate on May 24.
It's funny how life will take a turn for the worse right when you think it's about to get better than it's ever been, but that's just how it happened this time. I was finally doing what I had set out to do since I started writing for my high school paper in 10th grade. I was covering football and had become sports editor at my college newspaper.
From the time I was covering the same team in high school that I played for (a brand-new program that barely won any games) to finding out UMass skier Rush Hawkins got his name from his great-grandfather, who was a general in the Union Army in the Civil War, everything I had done had been with one goal in mind: one day I would cover football.
Getting to know Rush became my first big break in the journalism world. It was because of him that I broke the story about the ski team's coach getting fired; and because of that story, I was able to write a complete history of the program, talk to former and current coaches, athletes and even the athletic director. The thrill of following that story from start to completion told me for the first time that I was in the right field.
I worked my way up the ranks from field hockey to skiing to softball to soccer to hockey before my chance came in my third year with the Collegian. I was here, driving to road games, writing game wraps and side bars and finally really seeing my future ahead of me.
That's when my life seemed to fall apart. In November 2007, I fell into a depression for several months and lost sight of everything for which I worked. My job at ESPN.com, my position as sports editor, my grades and my life just seemed less important. I even considered stepping down at the Collegian because I could feel that my heart just wasn't in it like it had been before.
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