Another sports editor says goodbye to the Reporter
Andrew Neururer
Sports Editor
I spent about a year at The Reporter, both as a writer and as the sports editor, and in that short amount of time, I met some awesome people and learned a lot.
During my junior year of college, I was in a mass media class when the former Editor in Chief David Bassey, news editor Madison Diemert and sports editor Kevin Korbel came in to talk about The Reporter.
At the time I was aspiring to hopefully find a job after college in some sort of journalism field, hopefully as a sports journalist. I was and still am writing online for a website called FanSided about the Minnesota Timberwolves.
However, those three coming into my class helped me find The Reporter. I spent three years at Minnesota State University, Mankato, and never once knew about it. I joined the staff as a writer and it was fun writing up stories and eventually Kevin asked if I’d be interested in the sports editor position in the fall of 2019 after he graduated. Kevin taught me a lot before I took over the role of sports editor.
Another person who really helped me out was the web editor and photographer for the paper, Mansoor Ahmad. At first, I found him a little weird, and still do, but he became a really good friend and made coming into the office a joy. It was fun throwing the football in the office and outside, or even taking a break to dap up and watch Trevor Wallace.
As the year went on, I realized that journalism or writing for sports was something I didn’t want a part of after graduating. I lost a lot of enjoyment writing about sports and prior to joining I always loved going to athletic events, but when it came time to do it for work, I didn’t have a desire to go.
Not to say the Reporter caused me to lose interest in sports, but without joining, I wouldn’t have found out early in my career that this is something I didn’t’ want to do. I’d rather learn now, then find out after graduating from college.
It was still a lot of fun and I’m glad people like Maddie got me out of my comfort zone. I didn’t plan on going to the Pizza Ranch fundraiser, but if it wasn’t for her texting me to go, I wouldn’t have realized the fun I was missing and I was able to meet some people because of it.
I learned a lot using Adobe Photoshop, InDesign and I became a better writer and editor with the experience. After a while I was able to get my work done right away and I would find myself done within an hour sometimes. It was valuable experience for my mass media classes and hopefully for some future jobs.
If I had to do it all over again, I’d still join the Reporter and take the sports editor position, but I would have made more of an effort to hangout or talk to some of the people in the office. Once the school shutdown, I didn’t realize how much fun and how much I’d miss the Reporter when it was gone. I even missed doing SportZone, which is a dreaded project for sports editors and writers when it comes up three times a year.
I do want to thank my writers for getting in their articles right away and working hard. It wasn’t easy being places or writing up so many things when there was only about three or four of us at the time.
I also want to thank Jane Tastad, who was always a joy to talk to and for really pushing to get people to hangout in the office and do extra events. Now that it’s over, I see what she was trying to say and I would tell people in the future that they should listen.
Also, to Mansoor, you helped me a lot and as I said before, you became a good friend because of it. Lastly, I’d like to thank Maddie for helping me and being a good Editor in Chief.
Now that I’ve graduated and my time is done at the Reporter, I hope that the place can continue to stay open and deliver news to the campus for years to come.
Header photo: Sports editor Andrew Neururer smiles uncontrollably after realizing he was going to watch and interview the Minnesota Timberwolves players on the campus of Minnesota State University, Mankato Oct. 2, 2019 at the Taylor Center. (Mansoor Ahmad/MSU Reporter)