Campus Buzz

NYT Sports Journalist Speaks with writing Students

By Baru Roberson and Melissa Webber

On the afternoon of 26 April, those of us in Dr. Rosen’s First Year Seminar class had the opportunity to video chat with New York Times sports journalist, William C. Rhoden. The course focused on sports journalism over the course of the semester, so we were quite eager to have the opportunity to chat with someone who has real life experience in the field.

Mr. Rhoden is as prominent a journalist as exists in sports today. A frequent contributor to both print and electronic media, his first interviews, he explained to us, included some of the sports world’s greatest stars, such as Julius Erving, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and even a pre-scandal OJ Simpson. With over forty years of experience, Mr. Rohoden, who apprenticed under the great Sam Lacy of Baltimore’s fabled Afro-American, learned the important lessons within sports journalism that he relayed to those of us in the classroom. He advised: “No matter how good you are, there’s always someone better.” This life lesson was especially significant for college students, specifically freshman, because knowing that someone will always be one step ahead pushes a person to work as hard as possible.

During Rhoden’s career, he kept that in mind in order to work to his best ability. Being an African American in a predominantly white field, Mr. Rhoden could have settled and set limitations on his aspirations, but instead he chose a different path. He did not let the color of his skin stop him from achieving his goals, which is why after his stint at the Afro-American, he decided to leave Ebony for the wider circulation of the Times, a decision that some saw with skepticism. As some of his co-workers explained, “You won’t be the golden boy anymore,” explained some of his co-workers at Ebony magazine, but while Rhoden did endure the repercussions of being a minority, his success, he claims, made all the troubles worthwhile.

Since then, he has covered numerous Super Bowls, The Olympics, World Cups, and many more exciting sporting events. He has written two books and currently has a third in the making. He has even created Emmy nominated documentaries including the two-part series The Journey of the African-American Athlete and Breaking the Huddle.

Mr. Rhoden was kind enough to answer some of the student’s questions that day. When asked, he mentioned that journalism today is not what it used to be when he started his career back in 1973. With the creation of the internet and social media, he noted, there are many more platforms of which young writers and journalists can avail to reach their target audiences. He suggested that those of this generation looking to pursue a career in sports journalism should be well rounded in their undergraduate years, learning basic skills in fields such as communications and film. A liberal arts school such as Moravian University, he furthered, holds the key to earning a degree with a well rounded background in studies outside of the intended major. As he put it, “Like Tom Brady knows how to put a pass perfectly between three defenders, journalists have to perfectly put a picture into their readers’ minds,” his main point being that it is important to know different skills in your field in order to connect everything one has learned together, creating the best skillset possible.

The video conference with Mr. Rhoden was a memorable experience for our own first year students here at Moravian University. It was beneficial for us to make a real life connection to the content that we were studying in our First Year Seminar environment. Journalism is an ever changing field that keeps the reading world entertained, up to date on current events, and above all else, it provides knowledgeable information for the minds of those readers. That was most certainly our takeaway from the experience.

Accounting Team Makes Final 8

The team of Tyler Dwyer ‘16, Austin Niekrasz ‘16, Matthew Geist ‘16, Michael Roethke ‘16, and Frank Marchetta ‘16 made the final 8 (the second round) of the IMA Case Competition as part of the requirements for Senior Seminar in Accounting taught by John D Rossi III.  They did not make it to the first round but came close to winning.  With their victory comes bragging rights and they came close to winning the case competition.