It’s never easy to point to an exact moment in time when I first knew I wanted to be a sportswriter, but if I had to guess, I’d say it came around fifth grade. My teacher told me to write about a memorable experience in my life. So, naturally, I chose to reminisce about my game-winning three-pointer in my travel league championship basketball game. It was the first time I had ever truly enjoyed a school assignment. Since then, I have written for three newspapers and freelanced for several others. At 17 I became the Community Times’—a Baltimore County-based weekly—first ever sportswriter. I picked up a summer internship at the Carroll County Times as a 19-year-old where my beat was, well, very off-beat. I covered anything from shooting to motocross to figure skating. I graduated from the University of Maryland on May 21, 2012, and three days later I became full-time with The Gazette. As a Terp I earned a bachelor’s degree in print journalism. While at Maryland I had to cover everything from crime to education to what the Greek Life was getting itself into. Despite my professors’ persistent efforts to get me to branch out, I never really considered covering anything but sports. An athlete all my life, I’ve played baseball, basketball, golf, soccer, tennis, ran track and cross country, and even swam for a year on the Maryland club team.