I didn’t get a traditional start at the Daily Evergreen. But man, am I glad I decided to give it a shot.

I knew the sports editor, Sam Taylor, from Cable 8 last year. I was the head producer of “Wazzu Sports Network”, which is the sports department in Cable 8. He was a talent. Once he got hired as sports editor last year I told him to let me know, and that I would apply to work for him.

As already one of the longest-tenured sports writers, I only started in July. I started as a sports reporter, just writing about random sports topics during the summer, like the NBA, the draft, some hockey and some WSU-related topics.

The summer was odd, I wasn’t anywhere close to the writer that I am now, in fact, a lot of my first work probably sucked. But Sam was very encouraging and told me he loved my work and worked with me if it was trash.

I entered the year handed the football beat, the biggest prize of them all. If you work the Cougar football beat, you know you’ve made it at the Evergreen.

The sports section then continued to grow, from when I first started there were three reporters. Sports has now grown to over 13 people in the section including Sam and myself.

In September, I was hired as the Evergreen deputy sports editor. I started editing our reporters’ stories and building pages. Simply because we have such a big sports section and it was overwhelming for Sam.

Building pages in Adobe InDesign is tough, my first few weeks of doing this I struggled mightily; I still struggle quite a bit when creating pages.

I am forever grateful for this opportunity of being the deputy sports editor. I never had the chance of doing anything like this before.

I work as the vice president of special projects at Cable 8 and being hired as the deputy is a whole different deal. In Cable 8 I just help shows in production, I cannot create content but I help them create the best shows that they can make.

At the Evergreen, I write stories as well as edit and almost do the same thing in helping our writers create their articles to the best of their ability.

It is a lot more work than someone would think. I mean, it is more than what I thought I would do going in.

Even though it’s hard work, I plan on coming back for my last semester in Spring 2023.

Again though, I am incredibly grateful to Sam, our Editor-In-Chief Sandi and the other people that help run the newspaper. This is a great time and a great job that I would recommend to anyone interested in writing or editing.