The following story is a feature I wrote about Liam Donoghue, who’s one of Illinois’ fastest cyclists. I worked with the administrators at the Ed Rudolph Velodrome to cultivate the idea and set up the interviews. On Dec. 19, 2012, this story was selected as the Pioneer Press papers’ best feature story written by a freelancer within the last year. Former Washington Post sports writer Steve Yanda was the contest’s judge. The competition included approximately 20 freelance sportswriters, and I won a $40 gift certificate to Pequod’s Pizza in Chicago. The pizza was fantastic.
Here’s the link to the story: http://northbrook.suntimes.com/sports/13812926-419/donoghue-establishes-his-third-record-at-northbrook-velodrome.html
If that link doesn’t work, please select “click to continue” to read the full text.
[click to continue…]
The following story is about Taylor Tashima, a New Trier volleyball player who represented the United States’ Youth National Team in the summer of 2012. I’m really proud of how this story turned out. It’s a story I pitched to Ryan Nilsson, my editor, and involved a 25-minute interview with Tashima and building a relationship with Taylor’s father, Paul, who’s heavily involved with the Wildcat Juniors club volleyball program.
This also served as the 2012 girls volleyball preview for the Pioneer Press papers.
Link to the story: http://mortongrove.suntimes.com/sports/14650359-419/volleyball-tashima-setting-up-for-a-bright-future.html
Select “click here to continue” to read the story’s full text.
[click to continue…]
In addition to working as a freelance sportswriter in Chicagoland, I also run TheStrokesNews.com. TheStrokesNews is a website focused solely on one band. I’ve build a strong community of loyal readers since the site launched less than three years ago, and many of those readers regularly comment. TheStrokesNews’ popularity continues to grow. The site set a new traffic record of 44,471 page views on March 18, 2013, and @TheStrokesNews currently has more than 13,000 followers on Twitter.
I also regularly break stories that are then picked up by mainstream music websites like Stereogum, Pitchfork, NME and Rolling Stone. Example 1. Example 2, a story which ended up running in Rolling Stone magazine.
Running a site like this also provides the opportunity to occasionally write opinion pieces. I used my expertise and wrote a review of The Strokes’ fifth record (click here to read the review), and it received praise from countless members of The Strokes’ online community. Much of that praise can be seen in the post’s 200+ comments.
(Note: This story was published on OttawaDelivered.com on Nov. 13. But since Ottawa Delivered’s website will be shut down at some point in the near future, I’ve decided to post the story and the photos I ran with it. The original story can be found here.)
EAST MOLINE – Before the United Sectional began, Ottawa’s Brittnie Dean couldn’t help but think Saturday might be the end to her four-year varsity swimming career.
Dean, arguably Ottawa’s best female swimmer since 2004 state qualifier Heather Mennecke, began her meet by finishing in a distant second place in the 200-yard freestyle; a race which Dean and Ottawa swimming coach Jenny Borkowski figured was Dean’s best chance to qualify for state.
Only one realistic opportunity to extend her career remained.
[click to continue…]