Hayden Stinchfield might be the biggest sports nerd that you don’t know, but probably should.
The Daily Evergreen sports co-editor has edited the Evergreen’s sports section and designed its pages since last May, covered WSU men’s basketball for the last two years and penned several absolute banger columns such as “No, Brandon, Barry Bonds does not deserve to be in the Hall” and the “The NFL has a drug problem.”
The common thread of each article Stinchfield has written is that he does not shy away from saying it like it is.
“I said ‘The MVP was probably DJ Rodman simply because he did not play due to illness and that’s better on both ends than anyone else in the game.’ And I was right. But damn like you can’t be saying that. It was horrible. It was the Prairie View loss. It was really, really bad,” Stinchfield said.
Stinchfield started at The Daily Evergreen in August 2022 as the cross-country beat writer. By October, he was the men’s basketball beat writer, covering a team fresh off an NIT semifinals run.
Stinchfield developed a working relationship with head coach Kyle Smith, Sports Information Director Jim Crawford, the WSU Athletics official responsible for media relations with the men’s basketball program and various student-athletes, including current NBA player Mouhamed Gueye, DJ Rodman, Myles Rice, Jaylen Wells, Andrej Jakimovski, Isaiah Watts and more.
“It all felt very real. All the sudden it went from like a club that I was into, like something that was actually at least kind of emulating what it would be like as a career,” Stinchfield said.
The Cougs 2023–24 season saw them make March Madness for the first time since 2008. Crowds in Beasley Coliseum reached over 8,000 people for the final three games of the season as Pullman had basketball fever.
Stinchfield was on the front lines of the Evergreen’s coverage of a 25-win season in which WSU only lost two home games. Stinchfield missed the Oregon game because of winter break, and did not see a single home loss until the Apple Cup. He wrote previews and recaps of each game, asking insightful questions.
“It was I think like the most unique way that you could possibly experience your schools or your team’s success,” Stinchfield said.
Stinchfield had not always been as much of an avid sports fan as he is today. Born in Utah, but a resident of Cleveland as a toddler, Stinchfield attended many then-Indians baseball games and has vivid memories of the ballpark. He lived briefly in San Diego and Japan before arriving in Washougal, Washington. Already a fan of Cleveland basketball, baseball and football teams, he became a fan of the Portland Trail Blazers and Seattle Seahawks.
Stinchfield said he was the kind of fan who watched his teams in the postseason, making 2016 a particularly notable year as he watched LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers come back from down 3-1 to the Warriors in the finals and saw the Cleveland Indians blow a 3-1 lead in the World Series to the Chicago Cubs.
Stinchfield said he picked up one sports fandom a year from 2020-22, beginning with the NBA. Basketball quickly became his favorite sport when he watched Damian Lillard of the Portland Trail Blazers hit a dagger of a game-winner to beat the Oklahoma City Thunder.
The next year he picked up football, just in time for the “Let Russ Cook” era of Seahawks football and then the next year became an avid baseball fan as the now-Guardians made a playoff run.
Stinchfield’s knowledge extends so far that he is able to talk for at least one minute about each of the 92 NBA, NFL and MLB teams, a promise he can uphold because he regularly quizzes himself on the task while driving.
“I liked how knowledgeable he was about like random shit basically, just like anything,” said Joey Famularo, Stinchfield’s partner of nearly three years and a fellow criminal justice major.
Stinchfield’s obsession with sports endeared him to his partner, Famularo. The pair met in April 2021 on TikTok. He found them on his For You page and messaged them when he saw that they were wearing a WSU sweatshirt. Knowing that they would be attending the same school, the couple began dating in June and Facetimed each other most nights before meeting each other by suprise in August.
Famularo said they saw someone at Starbucks who looked familiar.
“And I turned around to tell my friends that that guy kind of looks like Hayden and they all have their phones up. And they’re recording and I’m like, ‘Oh my god. Okay, I see what’s what’s going on here.’ He had come up early to surprise me,” Famularo said.
Stinchfield and Famularo drove across the country to Famularo’s home in North Carolina to get their dog and take her back to Pullman.
Over the summer, they will move to Boston where Famularo will attend Suffolk Law.
Famularo said that they know Stinchfield as “argumentative, funny and generous.”
His argumentative nature allows him to hold strong sports opinions and make his case, especially in writing where he said he appreciates the chance to take his time and include statistics in meaningful ways.
Stinchfield said his goal is to get some sort of written journalism job in the Boston area while his partner attends law school.
“The hope would be that I could find a role in the booming industry of print journalism,” Stinchfield said. “And get to the top just in time, buying a ticket for the sinking Titanic, but it’s gonna be awesome. It’s gonna be a great time all the way down.”
