Division 1 Sports and Your College Experience

I greatly enjoyed my experience at a then DII school. I was at a suburban Cal State that was one of the top DII schools in the nation, winning national championships in numerous sports during my time there. Basketball was good but football was not. More students cheered for and attended games for USC and UCLA than the alma mater.

But, like others, I got opportunities that I wouldn't have had elsewhere. I created a sports talk show on the campus-located NPR station and while there was no live play-by-play, we would record games and edit them down to highlights. I was also able to cover many pro games and events, honing my craft although I switched from broadcast to print after graduation.

My wife went to an NAIA school in Oklahoma so were thrilled when our son picked a Pac-12 school. But he doesn't care about sports and attended maybe two football games in four years there and no other events, even though he had a high school friend on the volleyball team. He did smoke pot with the starting quarterback, if that counts for anything.

 

This being at least nominally a sports journalism board, I’ll point out the obvious: Attending a D1 school greatly increased the opportunity to learn in a more-real environment than at a smaller school or one that didn’t have top-tier athletic program.

The football team at the university where I got my undergraduate degree sucked, but other teams in the conference brought a high level of skill and the intensity of game day helped me hone skills for being in the right place at the right time when everyone else covering the game was trying to do the same.

The basketball ball team was almost always a national contender and I was able to travel to cover the team postseason.

A wide variety of other sports and an active intramural athletic system also added variety to budding journalism career.

Perhaps the only downside is that, early on, I took the “No cheering in the press box!” mantra perhaps a bit too far and still don’t get very emotionally invested in the success of my alma mater’s teams.

 

Coming out of high school, I wanted to stay in state and hoped to attend a Division I college -- applied to Georgia (knowing I wouldn't get in) and Georgia Southern (knowing I would get in). Being at Southern was a blast, because it still had a bit of the small school feel (enrollment was about 10-12,000 less than it is now, following the merger with Armstrong in Savannah).

I loved getting to cover and attend sporting events. When I started, Southern was at the tail end of its last great I-AA push with Paul Johnson and Adrian Peterson (the one who went on to the Bears), and my freshman year was the year of the last national title in 2000. On the sports beat at a college that size, you felt more appreciation for your work -- as opposed to being one of 50 people covering a Duke basketball game or a Georgia football game. For the major sports, it was typically us (the school paper), Statesboro and Savannah, with a steady flow of AJC coverage for football (mainly the late Earnest Reese, or Karen Rosen).

 

Being D1, even one of the smallest D1 teams, sure did enhance my college experience.

Football games were fun, but played about five miles away off-campus. I can only imagine how much fun it would have been had we played on-campus, like today, about 1/4 mile from my fraternity.

 

Major D-1 university here. Attended almost every single football game all 4 years. 1 field storm.

Covered the men's basketball team my senior year. Nearly died in a court storm. One of the most iconic nights of my life. Covered the NCAA tournament and the first and second rounds.

Post college, I covered college basketball in my newspaper gig, so having "covered a D1 school and NCAA tournament" on my resume definitely helped get me that job.

 

I went to East Tennessee State. The football team beat Appalachian State for the first time in 20 or 25 years. The AD opened the gates to the field and was actively encouraging the students to go tear down a goalpost. Everyone was like, "Naaaaaa, we're good."

 

One of the major perks of picking the school I did over the one I didn't was the one I picked had football. And I had significant years in marching band, auditioned and made it right away.

Made all games that didn't weather out the bands. Made a lot of basketball games after my first year ... shoot, the last two years of the ACC Tournament, I was my entire section because no one else in the section showed up for enough games. Sure, they wanted to go to the Duke and Chapel Hill men's games. But they didn't bother with the Florida State game ... and forget about women's games. Never mind that in those days, Kay Yow consistently won 20-plus games a season like clockwork whereas the men's team was crawling out the mess partly created by Jim Valvano and largely exacerbated by Peter Golenbock's lies and a publication run by a family that was unapologetically pro-Chapel Hill. Besides, the pep band could make a bigger difference in women's games, though they were better attended than many might think, especially there during that era.

As I told one editor before he was able to ask, it's tough to carry a piccolo in one hand and a notebook, scorebook and pencil in the other. No regrets because it was the time of my life. Also, as the son of a soccer and basketball official, I knew the difference between fans begging for calls and an actual missed call. Band tended to know I didn't gripe about stuff like that until I saw something unquestionably wrong.

Wouldn't do it any differently if I had the chance to do it again. I love sports and love music. It was the best of both worlds.

 

I grew up in one SEC town and went to another SEC school because I didn't want to stay home for college. From my childhood through college, I couldn't imagine a fall Saturday without big-time football to attend or watch on TV. At the same time, if I'd grown up or gone to college elsewhere I'm sure I would have found something else to do and had a blast all the same.

 

Spent freshman year at Northeast Missouri State (now known as Truman State). They weren't a D-II powerhouse or anything, but going to football -- and especially basketball -- games was fun. In a small town like Kirksville, those games were big events, and fun for us students who didn't leave every weekend for St. Louis or Kansas City (I was from Chicagoland).

Transferred to University of Iowa for sophomore year, but had nothing to do with D-I athletics. My girlfriend (now wife) went there. Still, had some fun times watching Hawkeye sports, and eventually covering them for the Daily Iowan.

You can have a lot of fun in college without big-time sports, but those events (and the partying before/after) certainly add to the experience.

 

Absolutely. Wisconsin, mid-1990s. One of the best stretches ever for 18-year-old me. I lost "the big V" in my dorm room on a Saturday morning as I could hear the marching band playing the Budweiser song out in the street. Add in basketball and hockey and it was sports paradise while going to school. That led to my eventual entrance into media because I loved the environment.

I can look at the football schedule of the five years (!) I was in school. Decades later, I could tell you exactly what I was doing that weekend -- what the weather was like. I may not remember much of the actual games but I still remember the road trips, whom I went with, even who I went to the home games with.

What I loved to do... September/October home games. Wake up at the crack of dawn. 5:40 a.m. or so. Get the Saturday morning papers (two different Saturday papers back then -- imagine that), go for a long run as the city would wake itself up. Get back to my apartment on the lake, shower and start my day.

It absolutely enhanced the experience.

However, by my fifth year, I had gone over to the "dark side". From an obnoxious fan in Section P to a kid in a shirt/tie, holding a camera on the sidelines -- fighting deadlines and other photogs to "get the shot".

My typical week as a senior. 15 credits. Wednesday/Saturday/Sunday: work at the TV station. Tuesday/Thursday/Friday night: work as a sportswriter for one of the papers. Off Mondays.
And I loved it.... but I was also ready to get the hell out of that town.

 

Going to a MAC school just down the road from a Big Ten behemoth, most students didn’t center their experience around it, but my friends and I did. And that made it all the more special. Being in the front row at mid court for basketball games and at the 50 for football games, it really was a blast. It felt like having your own team. And when the basketball team made the NCAA tournament my junior year and then the Sweet 16 a few years later, it was funny to see a bunch of classmates who weren’t there wishing they had spent more time with us at those games.

I loved being at a D1 but accessible program.