And now it's time... to say goodbye... to all our company

AFRICK- 364 FINAL ...

(Picture below from SUAthletics.com; from left to right: Roy Simmons Jr., Gary Gait, Dr. Daryl Gross and John Desko... all coaches are SU alums)
M-I-C... See you real soon... You can finish the rest.

Going into this project, once I suggested the topic in my pitch, I knew it would be a daunting task. The SU Athletics Communication Department hasn’t been very accommodating to many of the media outlets around campus that I work at (CitrusTV, z89, WAER), so what made me think that they would even give me the time of day? There were times throughout the process of the project where I wanted to quit, thinking that my story would turn out awful. Going into last night, I was wary about how my project would turn out. But talking to one of my senior friends, she said that one of her regrets was that she didn’t do enough work she could be proud of as an underclassman. That opened my eyes to the fact that I really had nothing yet that I could be proud of. That changed with this project.


The idea for a project about coaches who played and coach and their alma-mater actually started when Gary Gait was hired over the summer. I knew I had to talk to him so that was the first call I made. But after that, I spent a while trying to find good sources and simply making calls. One of the things about a sports project is that to interview coaches, you have to go through different channels like talking to SIDs. So to get one interview I would have to first call one of these people. That alone could take days. Luckily, I put out multiple calls at a time, so I got multiple calls back at once. Sourcing became very difficult because the big name coaches like Gary Williams, Ralph Friedgen and even Tony Gwynn were busy and declined (yes, I called all of them). So I had to resort to even lesser sports, but I called some of the best teams in the sport and eventually got two great sources in Dave Pietramala (Johns Hopkins MLAX) and Mike Fox (North Carolina Baseball)

Overall this story was phenomenally interesting. Talking to and meeting all of these people that everyone know, but so few actually get to talk to them. The most thrilling person to meet was definitely Mike Hopkins. He's a huge character and he's friendly to everyone. I wasn't even sure I'd be able to talk to him when I went to practice, but he said it was no problem. It was fascinating to listen to but probably the most interesting interview was Roy Simmons Jr. He has so much history and so many ties with SU. He went here, played under his father (who was a coach), then coached freshman lacrosse for years before he took over for his dad. He recruited John Desko, Roy Simmons III (his son), Kevin Donahue and Gary Gait. All of those players are now coaching at SU. He had some really interesting things to say about Gary Gait as well. He mentioned that he talked to former women's lacrosse Head Coach Lisa Miller and asked her what the difference was at Maryland when they won seven consecutive national championships. She didn't hesitate and said Gary Gait. I guess that bodes very well for the Syracuse women's lacrosse program here.

On a side note, this whole semester has been amazing. I'm not the best at being sentimental, but I will say that never has there been a class before in my life where I have liked every single person. In this class I can honestly say that I liked everyone and had a great time. I always looked forward to Tuesdays and Thursdays, even when we had a test or big project because we're all friends. Thanks for all the memories. I will never forget Professor Nicholson's RTN 311/364 class in the Fall of 2007.