But it was my love of baseball that led me to journalism. I used to fall asleep to John Sterling, the radio play-by-play announcer for the Yankees. I must have heard him call at least 500 games. I never thought he was a particularly great announcer, however I thought he had the greatest job in the world. I would imitate him all the time, and pay close attention to his exact word choice, timing and expressions.
Because of that, whenever I would play or watch a baseball game, I’d always be announcing the game in my head, even when I didn’t want to and needed to focus on the game. I couldn’t control it. It soon became like that for every sport, and it never went away. But each game, even in my head, was more and more practice. It got to the point where I thought I’d be pretty good if I ever got the chance to announce real games. So when I got to high school I joined the school radio station’s sports department, and for three years I got to broadcast my school’s football, basketball and soccer games. I truly loved it. My broadcasting partner and I were actually fortunate enough to receive some accolades for our work, including second place at the John Drury National High School Radio Awards for the category of best sports play-by-play.
By then, I knew that being a sports play-by-play broadcaster was what I wanted to do, and that I loved journalism. So for my senior of high school, I became the Breaking News Managing Editor for our newspaper. Most of my prior journalism experience had all been sports related, but I quickly grew to love news as well. I loved the writing style and I loved breaking stories, even if the news within the articles wasn’t particularly big. At the conclusion of my senior year I got the opportunity to intern with The Norwalk Hour, a relatively big newspaper in Connecticut. There, I split time between the news and sports desks, and really got to go out and get on the ground. I covered everything from homicides and car accidents to playoff lacrosse and tennis to restaurant openings. The internship not only reaffirmed but also grew my passion for journalism.
A few months later I started my time at the University of California. In my two-plus years here, I’ve had equal experience in both news (the above picture is from last semester when I hosted "The Current," Annenberg Media's newsmagazine show) and sports. I still want to be a play-by-play broadcaster, but now I also have aspirations to be a news anchor. Whether my career path takes me to news, sports or perhaps even switching between the two remains to be seen. But until then, I’m excited to be able to continue gaining experience in both.