Senior Send-off: Open Mike Night

I don’t really know how to start this, so I’m gonna do the “thank you”-s first.

Thank you to all the incredibly talented editors I’ve worked with in my time on the Chronicle’s executive board. I know being an editor can feel like a thankless job at times; so to everyone from news, features, opinion, arts & entertainment, copy, multimedia and social, I want you to know that I appreciate you, and your dedication and work ethic has not gone unnoticed.

Thank you to the people who made my time as a sports editor possible. Felipe Fontes, Chris Detwiler and Alexandra Licata, thank you for setting the standard of what a sports editor should be and pushing me to improve and better myself in my freshman year.

To Felipe, David Lazar and our fearless leader Anthony Roberts, thank you for taking a chance on me and bringing me on as an assistant sports editor in my sophomore year. You opened the door for me to take part in something that’s become very special to me, and I’ll owe you guys for it forever.

Thank you to the amazing team at Hofstra’s Athletic Communications. To Stephen Gorchov, Rachel Vogel, Len Skoros and Nick Kapatos, you’ve been helpful, patient, kind and an invaluable resource, and the sports section owes you guys a lot.

Thank you to all the Editors-in-Chief and Managing Editors I’ve been able to work with. To Anthony, Tyler Dickinson-Frevola, Micaela Erickson, Jessica Zhang, Melanie Haid, Drashti Mehta, Visvajit Sriramrajan, Gab Varano, Taylor Rose Clarke and Rachel Bowman, thank you for being the backbone of this organization and for making it all possible. Without you all, none of us editors would be here because there simply wouldn’t be a Hofstra Chronicle.

I can’t wait to see the direction that Alexis Friedman and Anna DeGoede are able to take the paper in once they grab the reins in the fall. Thanks for keeping the show on the road.

Thank you to everyone who ever came to one of our section’s meetings, wrote an article for us or took photos on our behalf. The sports section doesn’t exist without all of you and your commitment to creating the content we publish. Whether you started with me four years ago, stuck it out through the Zoom era or just joined this semester, you’ve all made my job easier by bringing your talent to our section.

Thank you to the star-studded team I’ve been able to help lead and grow in my time as an editor. To Will Wiegelman, you’ve been the best partner I could’ve asked for this past semester with us leading the section together. Working with you has been a breeze, and I’m beyond proud of the work we’ve done together.

To Andrew Fantucchio, Max Edelman, Michelle Rabinovich and Frankie DiCalogero, I can’t begin to express how proud I am of you all, and that pride is only one-upped by the excitement I have for what you guys are going to do with the sports section. My confidence in you all has grown with each passing day this semester, and I’m relieved and incredibly happy to say that I know for a fact that the section is in the best hands possible moving forward. You guys are going to crush it, and I’ll be rooting for all of you no matter how many hundreds of miles away from campus I am.

Thank you to my family and my girlfriend for supporting my endeavors into the world of sports writing. You’ve always supported me in pursuing the things I wanted, even if there’s no money in it in the long run.

Without that support, I probably would’ve ended up being an accountant or something boring like that. And maybe I would’ve been rich, but would I have been happy? Also, maybe. But would I feel as fulfilled by my work? Probably not, so there’s something.

I considered stepping down from my position before this semester started. When Anthony was elected editor-in-chief, I knew my responsibilities would increase significantly by suddenly being the sports section’s senior-most editor. I knew stepping down would be selfish and put my peers in a difficult situation, but I just didn’t think I had it in me.

But, sitting here two weeks away from graduation, I know that would have been one of the biggest mistakes of my life. Despite all the long hours of writing, editing, leading meetings, putting our layout together and sending emails, I’d give anything to run it all back from the top.

So, thank you, me, for not letting yourself make that mistake.

I’ve had a lot of really cool opportunities thanks to my involvement with this paper. I was able to interview some of Hofstra’s premier athletes, including women’s soccer’s Miri Taylor who now plays with Angel City FC in the National Women’s Soccer League, softball’s Alexis Goeke, women’s golf’s Emmah Federman and men’s basketball’s Aaron Estrada.

I covered the announcement of Speedy Claxton as men’s basketball’s new head coach, and in March of this year I had the privilege of traveling to Washington, D.C. to cover the men’s basketball Colonial Athletic Association Championship.

Considering that I’m moving to the Washington metropolitan area in the fall, that trip allowed me the chance to scope out my potential new home. I also learned how to (poorly) ride an electric scooter.

I feel like I’m always going to be the newspaper guy. Not in the sense that I read newspapers more than the average person, but in the sense that newspapers will always have an important place in my heart. In high school, it wasn’t until I became an editor for our student paper in my junior year that I really found myself a home and started to come out of my shell. That experience led me to pursue the Chronicle relentlessly from my very first week on campus, and that pursuit has paid off in dividends. I don’t know what I would’ve been doing if I wasn’t an editor. It feels like it’s a part of me.

I’m gonna miss all of this. I’ll miss covering games and adding to my illustrious “Chronicle Stats” Google document where I kept track of how many wins and losses I’ve covered for each team. Shoutout to women’s soccer for going 18-2 in games I covered, and a special shoutout to women’s basketball for going 0-9. Still finished above .500 (37-31-1, to be exact)! I’ll miss sitting in the office on a Monday night, typing something insane in big font on our back cover and slamming my fist on the table while sarcastically yelling “PRINT IT!” I’ll miss the meetings, the editing and the never-to-be-closed tab on my laptop with our Gmail inbox open. I’m gonna miss it all, good and bad.

So, to sign off, I want to reiterate how proud I am of everyone involved with the Chronicle for what we’ve all been able to do collectively. This paper doesn’t come together on its own, and it certainly wouldn’t be as high quality as it is if not for the countless hours of work put into it. To everyone, from upper management to photographers, from staff writers to editors, thank you for making this all possible. You’ll never understand what you’ve done for me.

Photo Courtesy of Jacob Lewis/The Hofstra Chronicle