Author: dannystewart99

(Play this while reading this blog. It’s going to be sentimental.)

https://www.columbiamissourian.com/sports/pro_sports/nl-central-preview-brewers-cards-cubs-in-for-another-tight/article_0e4402ec-1b3b-11e9-8523-c32971b09608.html

Friday and Saturday were my last two days at the Missourian. It’s a very strange moment.

This last month has flown by quicker than I ever thought it would. You can go back and read previous blogs to find that I wasn’t necessarily looking forward to this break. After the break, I’m going to miss the work that I’ve done and the people I’ve worked with.

I didn’t have a great experience with the Missourian before and I take blame for that. After this month, I worked with so many people and expanded my range of writing to include more than just sports.

This month has become a very important piece in my story. The experiences I had and the opportunities to succeed were unmatched and I’ll never forget this month. Thanks to all that made it special!

Now, all of Friday, I wrote up most of this NL Central Preview. I think it’s fitting that my last story is a pro baseball one. I’m really glad I got to cover a Cardinals event on Saturday because it put me in my comfort zone.

I think my future lies in baseball media. The opportunity Michael offered to cover this event helped enhance my future hopes.

It’s the dead of winter and I got to write about pro baseball. I got way too excited and wrote a 1500 word behemoth. But, that’s just how much it means to me to write about the sport.

After my internship with the Red Sox, this story helped push me further into the thought process that I belong in baseball.

Also, during this event, a kid tapped me on the leg. He knew I worked at the Missourian because he saw my press badge and name.

He said I’m his favorite sportswriter and he reads my articles all the time. That was the coolest thing that ever happened to me. It made everything I’ve done mean so much more. I’ll never forget that.

Ooh, this month has also expedited the waiting process for Kingdom Hearts III. This game that I’ve waited for for 13 years comes out in 8 days. It was supposed to be the reward at the end of my time with the Missourian.

KH3 acts as a trophy in itself, but the experiences I’ve had and the friends I’ve made are something that will stick with me forever.

I could go on forever so, I’ll wrap it up with this: Thank you.

https://www.columbiamissourian.com/sports/mizzou_football/local-roundup-beckner-jr-to-skip-east-west-shrine-game/article_e68e1b8c-19bb-11e9-84d1-3b2f0fc1321c.html

Not much happened Wednesday. It was a very dry day that only saw these little tidbits of football updates. Other than that, Michael and I just talked baseball for a majority of the day.

I was supposed to do the local briefs for nightside, but we realized that the schedule we had wasn’t “Snowmageddon” updated and the games I was going to chase down got moved to Thursday night. So let’s check in on that, huh?

https://www.columbiamissourian.com/sports/mizzou_football/mu-spring-football-game-date-set/article_ae0f33ba-1a77-11e9-a2ac-ff310e03cacd.html

https://www.columbiamissourian.com/sports/mizzou_football/odom-adds-former-texas-tech-defensive-coordinator-gibbs-to-staff/article_2a6ee2f6-1a8d-11e9-a619-cb642878d876.html

https://www.columbiamissourian.com/sports/other_sports/local-roundup-columbia-college-demolishes-stephens-in-crosstown-matchup/article_24acfb96-1ace-11e9-a3bd-2f1436d76502.html

Thursday was kind of more of the same. After writing the Spring game brief, it was back to scanning the Twitter waves for anything that I could write about. After more baseball talk with Michael, he sent me home for the afternoon with the intention of having me do the Local Roundup later.

On my walk home, Barry Odom hired two new coaches for the football team. Timing: magnificent. I jogged home and typed up the story on both. Luckily, we got a release too so I was able to pull some quotes and info about the coaches without deep Googling.

That night, the local roundup was the easiest it’s ever been. Each team in the roundup is very active on their twitter accounts, so the information was all easy to find. It didn’t take me more than 40 minutes or so to put the whole thing together. Thank God for active Twitter feeds for local sports teams.

https://www.columbiamissourian.com/sports/mizzou_football/oh-brother-brian-odom-to-leave-barry-s-staff-for/article_0593a2cc-1822-11e9-9bc8-c31519213709.html

https://www.columbiamissourian.com/sports/prep_sports/local-briefs-rock-bridge-football-standouts-manuel-peat-selected-for/article_ff5d2180-182b-11e9-9621-6717a85e82fd.html

Monday began my last week as a reporter for a while. Getting to begin my final week with football leads was bittersweet because football’s what started me on this brief, 4-week journey that’s already coming to a close.

I spent most of Monday chasing down this lead. It was all over Twitter with DeArmond on top of it but I was calling people in Mizzou and Oklahoma’s athletic offices to find anything but nobody was budging. Given how nobody was budging, it was apparent that something was definitely going down.

It was cool to contact more than just Mizzou’s athletic department but I found out that Oklahoma’s Athletic Dept. stonewalls just the same. So that was a good thing to learn as I move forward.

The headline for the story is my pride and joy of this whole intersession. It was fun to come up with headlines again because I really hadn’t done it since I edited last spring.

The International Bowl story was cool because somebody from USA Football added me to a mailing list for reporters! That’s really cool that I was able to get that lead all on my own from a mailing list.

https://www.columbiamissourian.com/sports/prep_sports/kewpies-top-battle-rock-bridge-in-battle-for-the-belt/article_a7cce650-193c-11e9-b4e4-9b446743e2e5.html

The girls wrestling story from last night was fun to write despite there being an almost two-hour delay at Hickman due to a conflicting basketball practice. Which is just absolutely bananas. How do you let one practice interfere with a tri-school wrestling meet? It was nuts. My shoulder hurts today because I leaned against a wall for an hour and a half.

Regardless of the delay, it was cool to experience a girls wrestling meet during each school’s inaugural season. It felt like a big deal and it definitely was. I wish I wrote more but the creeping deadline and the post-meet environment made it difficult to hear from a member of each school.