I’ve never been good at math.
My senior year of high school, I switched into a sports journalism class simply to get out of a calculus class I was clearly going to struggle in.
I’ve played practically every sport there is since I was born, and I have always spent my free time writing. Combining the two seemed like a no brainer, although all I cared about was getting out of calculus.
Fast forward to two years later, I’m a community college athlete, going through a dark point in my life, and found my way back to journalism. It was at that point, when I joined the LPC Express News, that I rekindled a passion I had never truly recognized.
The role was not glamorous. I spent my weekends sitting in the bleachers under the hot California sun covering soccer double headers that ended in back to back scoreless ties. Writing game summaries that would get south of 20 views, being read by players and their families, if even that. All while I scrolled on my phone and saw my peers partying at big universities.
In these long days, came opportunities to cover stories I was passionate about. My last story for the JuCo newspaper was a feature on our nationally ranked men’s basketball team. I spent afternoons after my own practices interviewing the roster up and down, before talking to the coach extensively.
While I was writing these stories with the mentality of it being practice reps, often facing imposter syndrome, a word of encouragement from my advisor and lead columnist for The Athletic, Marcus Thompson, went a long way.
Marcus was a tough mentor, leaving endless edits on my articles, pushing me to find deeper avenues in stories, but at the bottom of my basketball article was a note.
“I think you might actually be pretty good at this, you could have a future in the industry.”
It was short, and for Marcus it was just a simple compliment. But for me, coming off the backend of a long dark period of life, it was all I needed to hear.
I hit another speed bump when I made an emotional decision to transfer to a University in the spring without a journalism program. A move made out of desperation to get out of my hometown. This led to me going six months without writing about sports, something I had become accustomed to doing frequently.
In March of that spring semester I called my good friend, Jesus Cano, who now works for Baseball America, to talk about my future and desire to become a big time journalist.
“Get out of that University or you’ll never get to where you need to be,” he told me.
Trusting in the advice of a friend and mentor, I transferred to San Diego State and joined The Daily Aztec.
The best decision of my life.
Working for the DA the past two years has been the most fun and made me the happiest I have ever been. I spend my weeks talking to athletes, brainstorming content ideas and covering big time Division I games.
My favorite article while here has by far been covering Reese Waters’ battle through rehab and what he went through on the way back to the court. Getting full access to his life, talking to his parents on the phone for an hour, and receiving such positive feedback from the Waters family as a whole was a blessing, and is exactly the type of reaction that makes me love what I do.
Working for the DA allowed me to travel to Vegas and cover a Mountain West basketball championship, go back to my hometown in the Bay Area and cover a Cal V. SDSU football game and so much more.
To my co-editor, Roman Aguilar, I look forward to sharing our experiences in the industry as we get older. Thank you for bringing me on board this year, and I can’t wait to see what you do next year.
To anyone who knows me, who has replied to my social media stories with words of encouragement, or told me how much they enjoy my articles when I’m visiting home, those words mean more than you know. I have (finally) found my avenue in life, and I don’t plan on slowing down anytime soon in the pursuit of it.
As I move on from SDSU, and face the biggest challenge of my life, finding a post-grad job in sports journalism, I will never forget the time I spent on the Mesa.
If there’s one thing I know how to do, it’s get through adversity and come out smiling on the other side. I have been told time and time again just how difficult it is to get a breakthrough in sports journalism after you graduate from a university, but with God and a good support system in my corner, I think things are going to work out just fine.
Thank you to The Daily Aztec for changing my life. I will forever be an Aztec, and I hope I made the newspaper proud.
