Lynn's Line

There are no stats to back me up on this, so what I am about to say is strictly a hypothesis based on my feelings from the classes I have taken and the people that I have met during the last couple of years in the Missouri school of Journalism.

I am a rare journalism student at Mizzou because I am not studying journalism at Missouri due to having a strong desire to one day be a great journalist. On the contrary, I am studying journalism at Missouri because of my deep love and passion for sports.

Growing up, the one common bond that could always bring my extended family together was sports. It was the single entity that made my father and I best friends. Whether we were watching the Chicago Bulls, Blackhawks, Bears or White Sox we were happy regardless of the result.

My dad, who remains the most influential person in my life, enrolled me in the hockey, basketball, soccer and baseball leagues in the community park district. My strongest sport was hockey where I served as the goaltender, and won the top net minder award on three separate occasions during my 10-year career. I was really good at standing between the pipes and just letting the black rubber disc hit any part of my body it could find.

Baseball was my true passion, however; as I played on many traveling teams and through my high school career as an above average pitcher and third baseman. Unfortunately, it was clear from an early age that I was never going to go on to be the next Sandy Koufax, Brooks Robinson or Dominik Hasek. The physical ability that separates elite athletes from the rest must have passed me by. But the analytical aspect caught on and hasn’t left.

At the age of 8, when I got my first box of Donruss baseball cards from the local card shop, I was like Dustin Hoffman’s character Raymond in “Rain Man.” No, I wasn’t autistic and maybe this comparison lacks sensitivity. Nevertheless, I had a unique ability to study and remember each player’s statistics and obscure facts about their careers. As time went on, I could name the starting lineups for every team in every sport and winning sports trivia contests wasn’t even a question.

As I continued to get older and smarter about sports topics I began to become critical of players and their actions on or off the field. I would study their habits—what is fundamentally solid about their swings? Does a certain player like to pass or shoot in a specific situation? Who should be paired on the same line for a run to the Stanley Cup?

The first class I stepped into in high school was an introductory journalism class taught by a very well respected woman named Susan Tantillo. While I never enjoyed writing and didn’t consider myself very good at it, she saw something in me that no one had before. She pushed me to a level I never thought possible and eventually I became the sports editor of the school newspaper that she ran until my junior year.

This is the time when the light bulb went off in my head. If I loved sports so much, and wanted to remain involved in some way that wasn’t on the playing field, journalism was the key. Ms. Tantillo helped me realize that to make a living in journalism it was important to start early and make connections. I acquired my first internship at Pro Football Weekly Magazine, where I worked for two years. During that time I attended six Chicago Bears games with a media credential and was like a kid in a candy shop. Every time I went into the locker rooms after the game I was star struck and I knew this was the life for me.

Since being accepted into the top journalism school in the country, I have decided to make myself better rounded. While I chose the news editorial sequence, I have held internships at two major broadcasting networks: WGN-TV and Comcast SportsNet-Chicago. I also did some work for Sports Illustrated On Campus to help gain a small sense of the advertising world. Lacking a photogenic eye, I wisely stayed away from trying anything in photography.

My experiences to this point in journalism have been truly incredible. I’ve talked to many stars of the basketball, baseball and football world and walked on the playing surface of historic stadiums around the country. I can only hope that my future in the profession is as sweet as the past.

Of course, if I meet my goals it should be. In an ideal situation, I’d like to write a column for a major newspaper somewhere in the country. Thanks to Mike Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser on “Pardon the Interruption,” sports columnists now double as TV personalities, and I hope to follow in their footsteps as well. While that might be a dream that doesn’t come true for quite some time, I believe that the numerous connections I have made thus far and the internships I have held will put my on the right path to success and make the Missouri Journalism school proud to call me an alum.