One day in September 2009, my editor assigned me a story on our three men’s soccer coaches who once played here at UT. I introduced myself to coach Adrian Bush and began my interview.
We got to talking about Bush’s career, including the time he coached at my high school. Soon enough, it turned into a full-blown conversation. We ended up in a long discussion about one of his passions: professional wrestling.
We talked for more than 30 minutes. It reached far beyond typical cliche writer-coach talk. The resulting story was good enough that I sent it as a sample on graduate school applications.
That was a fun story, but there will be no more. The bittersweet end has finally arrived.
After transferring schools, changing my major and writing dozens of sports stories for The Minaret, I’m graduating and saying farewell to UT.
In my year-and-a-half at UT and The Minaret, I encountered many great people and no bad seeds. I have countless people to thank for their help along this journey. Here are the notables:
-Editor-in-Chief Charlie Hambos, who got me my job when I transferred to UT;
-My first Editor-in-Chief, Peter Arrabal, who gave good pointers when I was new to the field;
-Assistant Editor-in-Chief Mel Steiner, a joy to work whenever I had the opportunity;
-Sports Editors Bobby Winsler and Kyle Bennett, for giving me direction when I was at a loss for a story;
-Tom Kolbe and the sports information staff, without whom we would have no sports section;
-Women’s basketball coach Tom Jessee, my first and most frequent interview subject, who always supplied useful quotes;
-Adrian Bush, for giving me 30 minutes of his busy life for the best interview I’ve ever done;
-Becky Vyzas, a fun final interview;
-Every sport, coach and athlete I covered, thanks for your time;
-My parents, for all of their support and for showing my stories to all of their friends;
-All of our loyal readers, thanks for sticking with us and following your Spartans;
-And finally, my fellow sportswriters- you all helped make this sports section as strong as it is.
I had never taken a journalism class when I started at The Minaret. From start to finish, I believe my news writing knowledge improved tenfold. I got to watch UT’s best women’s basketball team ever, profile a former Major League Baseball player and cover a top-ranked soccer team. My experience here taught me valuable lessons I will carry over into my career.
Even though I spent just a short time at UT, I am a proud Tampa native and will always consider it home. I got my first job, my first internship and my first big breaks in this city and at this school. I have been through six schools over the last 17 years. I’ve never been more grateful to another one.
I will move on to a graduate program somewhere else, but one thing remains constant: I am a Tampa Spartan for life.
Happy trails to you, until we meet again.