A farewell to the Reporter

Kevin Korbel
Sports Editor

Since I was five years old, I helped my parents out on the family farm back home in Lonsdale, Minnesota. Growing up, I helped out my family throughout the years, scooping, digging, cleaning, scrubbing, and fixing anything that needed to be done around the farm.

As time went on, I began to learn many more life lessons on the farm, and in doing so eventually applied it to everyday life, like how good things come to those who wait and work hard in life. This has been the antithesous throughout my personal, athletic and academic career.

When I graduated high school in 2015, I was involved in many things: football, baseball, track and FCA. Fast forward to November of 2017, I was looking for a new way to branch out and be more involved in college. I wasn’t the best at sports growing up, but I loved the sport industry and I always thought it would be awesome to work in PR. 

I stumbled upon the Reporter newspaper one day after class, and turned to the sports section, where I saw a specific article nitpicking the Minnesota Vikings. I thought it was so interesting and funny that on that day, I decided to walk to CSU 293, and fill out an application to try and work for the newspaper. It was on that day that I ran into the Editor-in-Chief at the time, Gabe Hewitt, who on that day hired me on the spot to write.

As I started to write articles basically about how horrible our Minnesota sports teams were all semester, while also covering MSU athletic events, the sports editor at the time, Tommy Wiita, was set to graduate and needed a replacement, and it was at this time he asked me to take over. At the time, I reluctantly said “yes”, and just a month after being hired, I was given a bigger role as an editor.

In the beginning of the new role, it got off to a rough start, as it was just me and one other writer at the time. When I first started editing the paper last year, I had very minimal experience editing before, so it came as a challenge to me doing anything editing-wise for the newspaper. 

That night, I stayed for 10 hours straight trying to edit the section of the newspaper, and as I went home at 1am on that cold January night, I wondered at the end of the day if I made the right decision of being an editor for the paper, but here I am two years later.

After two years, I’ve had a lot of great opportunities covering events for the newspaper, which included: Super Bowl 52, Minnesota Vikings training camp and games, Minnesota Twins caravan, MSU baseball, football, hockey, track and basketball games, and many more.

While the experiences have been great, the biggest thing I’ll still never forget about this paper is the relationships with people around the office who make our paper possible. 

Thanks to Maddie, Lucas, and Mansoor who worked alongside me this year the most editing the paper this year. While we did experience ups and downs throughout the year, working with them made it a little less hard to go to the office every day, even if they think my taste of music is something a “dad” would listen to. The days we spent running around the office, going to the dining hall and making podcasts will be the biggest memories. I will especially never, ever forget working on TimeLapse with you guys. It was truly a night I’ll never forget.

Thank you to our office managers, Jane and Dana. Both of you have helped me push through deadlines, and have also brightened up my day whenever I came into the office. You two are the heartbeats of this office, and without you guys our paper could not function.

Thank you to all the past and present writers on our sports staff. It’s been a wild run, but I think we made the best section possible. As Andrew now steps in for me year, I’m confident he’ll do a great job.

I’ll never forget my time at the Reporter, staying up until the bitter hours of the night working on an issue, working on SportZone or SlapShot, or just escaping to the office just to do homework, or make popcorn and waffles, or to just hang out in general with the people in the office.  

As I culminate my academic career, I look at it not as an end of a long journey, but as a start of a new chapter in my life, and I can’t wait to see what’s next to come.

I’ll end with a quote from the movie Rudy, and that quote is, “you don’t have to prove nothin’ to nobody but yourself.” As I stand today, I can confidently say that I’ve proven to myself that I can do anything I set my mind to. So goodbye room 293, goodbye Reporter, and goodbye readers. 

Header photo by Gage Cureton | MSU Reporter.