Evolution Of a Sports Writer

For the majority of my Spectator career, I have been in over my head.

I designed my first page of layout without ever having touched Photoshop; I wrote my first article after spending a semester doing layout; and I picked up the football beat when I wasn't entirely sure of the difference between a counter and a misdirection.

Not that I would ever have admitted any of this.

One glance at the gender of the 11 writers with whom I share this space will tell you that I have had to hold my own around here for the past four years. It's not particularly hard being a woman in a man's world-in fact, I'm happy to do it, and it has often made my job easier (if the bright red curly hair isn't enough to make some of these coaches look up when I ask a question, the gender thing generally does the trick).

Aside from one snide comment I got from an assistant coach who is no longer employed at this University (something about cheerleading tryouts being down the hall), I have never felt overwhelmed on account of being in the minority. That emotion was reserved for a far different arena, in which I made the conscious decision to shelve my personal convictions and abandon my team in the hopes of becoming a better reporter.

Ask my three roommates who Columbia football's biggest fan is, and they will not hesitate to rattle off ridiculous stories of how I spend my Friday nights memorizing roster cards and praying for Saturday afternoon wins. Ask anyone else on campus, and my name is probably the last that comes to mind.

In the fall of 2004, I was awarded the second position on the football beat, and I was out to prove myself. Cursed with the inferiority complex that comes with middle child syndrome and far less versed in the technical aspects of the game than I was willing to let on, I did everything in my power to keep from revealing just how far in over my head I was. The first time I sat down with the previous Saturday's stat sheets to find an aspect of the game on which to write my Tuesday "In Focus" is one sleepless evening I will never forget.

I displaced my self-frustration onto the Columbia football team, and entered a two-year-long downhill spiral in which I ripped to shreds some of this University's finest athletes, scholars, and individuals. Conveniently forgetting that Columbia's football players are my fellow students, I published some well-written pieces that were unnecessarily and unproductively cruel. Although in my time as a beat writer, I have certainly brought more positive than negative to these pages, it's now officially time to acknowledge that I made some mistakes.

Dear Columbia football: I'm sorry, and this time I really mean it.

With the arrival of a new coaching staff for the 2006 season, I was made to realize the error of my ways before it was too late, and took advantage of the opportunity my final season provided to redeem myself with the team I used to think of as my own. Fortunately, the Lions made that redemption process an easy one. Finishing on a high note, they gave me plenty of material: this team won its last two League games, including the season finale on the road against the defending Ivy Champions, and secured its first .500 record in a decade. For the first time in a long time, covering football was fun again.

Good journalists have an uncanny ability to detach from their subjects and show no hint of bias in their writing. It seems to me that good journalists must also be running low in the friendship department. For two years, I thought I wanted to be one of those good journalists, so I severed my ties, stepped back, and tried to be objective, erring on the side of criticism. And I hated every minute of it.

Good journalism, in my opinion, does not come from those "good journalists." I wrote some of the greatest pieces of my career this past semester, and they did not come out of some theoretical objectivity for which I was striving because it was the right thing to do. Instead, I wrote what I felt, wrote from the heart, and learned what it really means to be a great journalist. I will take these lessons with me as I sign off from this space for the last time, confident that although I am not yet in the company of the great writers of the world, I will no longer be confused as a journalist. Journalists care about scoops and sources; writers care about stories and people.

Thanks to Columbia football, I have become a writer.

Few things at Columbia have meant more to me than writing this column, and for that I need to thank Mr. Theodore Orsher, who got me started and wouldn't let me quit. To my brother, for teaching me the difference between a counter and a misdirection (and most everything else I know); to Sasha, for never missing a column and providing the best feedback (and copy editing) a budding writer could ever ask for; to Rebby and Ed, my proud suite parents, for always being ready with supportive words and comfort food, you never fail to kill my writer's block.

To Coach Wilson, thank you for a great senior season and for talking some sense into me that Saturday afternoon on the roof.

To the 15 seniors that stuck with football for four years, despite the negativity spreading like wildfire around you mostly when I was holding the torch. To U.O., A.B., T.C., M.B., and N.D. especially - thanks for putting up with me.

And to everyone else who has ever read my column, thank you.

This drive has been one for the books.