As I get ready to graduate from Northern Kentucky University, I want to leave my legacy with The Northerner. I want to be known as a man or a journalist who never stopped writing, mainly when it came to sports writing. I started out with this newspaper four years ago as only a staff writer. The sports editor at the time (Chad Aulick) gave me an opportunity to help out with the sports section. My first story was a preview on the NKU women’s soccer team.

From there, I began writing stories about the Norse basketball teams, the softball and volleyball teams and many other teams in the NKU athletic program. Actually, when I started writing about the sports teams, I got really acquainted with the coaches and players. And because I gave these teams a lot of coverage, I was respected by all of them.

Once I became the assistant sports editor and eventually the main sports editor at The Northerner, my writing and my stories improved greatly. I wrote more in-depth stories and my coverage of the various teams expanded and increased at a rapid pace. During my four years as a staff member at The Northerner, I have witnessed and covered such sporting events as the NKU women’s basketball team winning the program’s first ever NCAA Division II National Championship two seasons ago. I watched the women’s soccer program advance to the NCAA Final Four in only their third year of existence and just miss winning the National Championship in 2000.

Also, the volleyball team made it to the Final Four a few years ago. Basically, over the years, I have seen many of our other NKU athletic teams perform competitively against some of the top Division II contenders.

I encourage sports writers who want to write for The Northerner in the future to give complete coverage of the NKU teams who work their hardest day in and day out to prove that they are among the best in Division II. I feel all of these teams will continue to perform at an above average pace, and they deserve the best coverage that they can get.

I am about to move on with my career as a sports writer, and I hope to move on to bigger and better things. Maybe one of these days, people from around the world will see my stories in Sports Illustrated. For now, I will continue to do what I have been doing since my junior year of high school: write the best pieces I possible can for some newspaper. Then it will only be a matter of time before I become well known in my profession. I want to thank some of the professors at NKU who have helped me grow as a writer and got me to believe that I can make it as a professional journalist. Thank you Pat Moynahan, you have been a great teacher and friend. Thank you, Mary Cupito, for helping me improve my writing in more ways than one. I also have to give credit to Gayle Brown, Dr. Michael Turney, Dr. Brad Scharlott and George Rorrer for helping guide me in my journalism career.

And I can’t forget about some of the editors I have worked under too. Elden May, Kelly Sudzina, Anna Weaver and the great one, Scott Wartman, have all been good friends to me and I thank them for all their support and encouragement.

To conclude, I want to say that The Northerner is a great publication to write for at NKU. If you are in some kind of journalism or writing field, I hope you consider giving the college newspaper a chance. The adviser and the editors will work with you, and hopefully, you will accomplish many great as I did and you will be proud of your achievements. I am glad I wrote for The Northerner while I was in college, because I would never have known where my career would have gone without the writing experience.

I only have two final words to say: Go NORSE!!!