New beginnings: The Register’s new sports reporter

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When I was asked to write a column to introduce myself, I wasn’t sure how to begin. I didn’t know whether I should write a column littered with punchlines or come up with some dramatic tagline as to why I came to Brookings.

The easiest way I can explain it is because I love two things: sports and telling stories.

Let’s cover the sports part. I come from a family that loves their sports. My grandfather loved sports but his biggest passion was with the Minnesota Vikings.  That passion was passed down to my mother, who instilled his love of sports into me at a very young age.

Then some guy named Randy Moss came along and led the Vikings all the way to the 1999 NFC Championship Game. (We won’t talk about what happened there.)

Kevin Garnett, Marian Gaborik and a slew of other players showed up and I was hooked. I wanted to become a professional athlete but I wasn’t the most athletic kid on the field. Like many middle school athletes that come to this realization, I wanted to stay involved so I decided to pursue a career in journalism.

I went to the University of Wisconsin-River Falls and dove into everything I could find. I fell in love with broadcasting and started calling Falcon hockey games on the radio. 

The broadcasting side didn’t pan out, so I tried my hand at writing for every website I could find. I started at Bleacher Report and the Yahoo Contributor Network and eventually found my way to Zone Coverage. I covered my first Vikings training camp in 2014 and it felt like I found what I was meant to do.

That’s where the storytelling comes in. In 2015, I started working at a newspaper in Kasson, Minn. about 20 minutes west of my hometown in Rochester. It was a huge leap of faith because I had never worked at a newspaper before. After going into a field with the camera and taking pictures of squirrels to learn the ropes, I started to learn about page design and eventually started to find a groove.

Although it was fun to learn new things, the best part about that job was meeting people throughout the community and telling their stories. I quit in 2019 in order to write more for Zone Coverage and Bring Me The News but I missed the hustle of going to a game under the Friday night lights or getting the perfect shot. 

I started to wonder what would be the best opportunity would be to get that feeling back and I ultimately landed on Brookings.

I’ve talked to so many people about this community and every one said how much they love it here. The opportunity to cover Brookings High School and South Dakota State athletics is a golden one. While I haven’t had the opportunity to explore the area, I’m excited to get to know it. Most importantly, I’m excited to share the stories of this community and find out why people can’t stop saying good things about it.