I am Marissa Kraus, sports reporter for the Daily Nebraskan at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. In this position I serve as a features/profile writer as well as cover bowling and gymnastics. I have also served as an intern for BVM Sports, where I covered local prep sports.

Upon graduation, I’m looking for a position that will allow me to reach my eventual goal of covering professional running for a well-known sports publication.

However, I am also passionate about sports photography, so I can see myself doing that as well.

I’ve earned three first-place awards in my university’s publication competition for my feature and profile writing as well as a couple awards for my sports photography. I have also interned with the Lincoln Stars hockey team, where my photos have been featured on various platforms. In the fall, I will be interning with the Omaha World-Herald as a sports fellow. I also serve as president for the UNL college of journalism student advisory board and am involved in various other orgs on campus.

I’ll be a junior in the fall at UNL in Lincoln, Nebraska, where I major in journalism with minors in psychology and leadership. My Sports Journalism Institute internship this summer is with the Denver Post, where I will be covering Denver sports such as the Colorado Rockies.

I am from Columbia, Missouri and grew up an avid Tigers fan. When deciding where to attend school, I fell in love with the UNL campus as well as the many opportunities in the college of journalism. The Husker fanbase is like no other, and some of my best memories are of Husker football gameday.

My name is Joel Lorenzi, and I was recently hired as the Creighton beat writer for the Omaha World-Herald, effective in July.

I’m ecstatic to be able to cover Big East basketball just months removed from college, and I’m big on basketball in general. Eventually, I want to become an NBA beat reporter, a role in which I’d hopefully gain enough traction to become a national NBA writer.

My journey has carried on so quickly that I haven’t quite stayed anywhere long enough to earn any awards, working with the Columbia Missourian, Rivals and the Indianapolis Star in the past year.

I graduated in December from the University of Missouri at Columbia, where I earned my bachelor’s degree in journalism with an emphasis on print and digital journalism.

My Sports Journalism Institute internship this summer is with the Houston Chronicle, where I’ve spent the past few weeks. I hope to provide some great coverage for Houston’s pro teams, as well as possibly profile a few of the area’s high profile basketball players.

I was born and raised on the West Side of Chicago. Kobe Bryant and the 2009 NBA Finals made me fall in love with hoops, and between the neighborhood I grew up in and attending Whitney Young Magnet High School, I’ve been around high-level basketball since middle school.

I never knew I could turn one of the only things I knew into a career until I started watching people like Stephen A. Smith and reading Brian Windhorst. I wasn’t a sports writer in high school because I had no idea how to begin that journey. I didn’t find my way until the first semester of my senior year at Mizzou. I think it’s safe to say that a lot has happened since then.

I’ve gotten to cover a lot of things since, but I’m grateful to have been at the last couple of Men’s NCAA tournaments, including Saint Peter’s first two wins in this year’s tournament.

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I’m Roshan Fernandez, a senior staff writer at The Daily Orange at Syracuse University, where I major in newspaper and online journalism with a minor in environment and society.

I’ve written almost 350 stories through my three years at Syracuse, everything  from game coveragesand sports features to crime, breaking news and obituaries. I’m a versatile journalist who’s covered more than a dozen different sports, and I also have experience as a designer, photographer and audience engagement editor.

Upon graduation, I’m looking for a reporting position that’ll allow me to broaden my scope beyond sports journalism. I hope to eventually reach my long-term goal of working for The New York Times.

I placed in the Top 20 for two different Hearst Journalism Award categories this year. I was also a recipient of the Asian-American Journalism Association’s Al Young Scholarship for Sports Journalism in 2020.

My Sports Journalism Institute internship this summer is with the Seattle Times.

I grew up in Cupertino, California, which you might recognize because that’s where the tech company Apple is headquartered. Unlike most of my high school classmates, I wasn’t as interested in computer science or biochemistry. I enjoyed talking to people and writing, so I committed to Syracuse for journalism.

I joined The Daily Orange on my first day of college and have learned so much from covering football, men’s and women’s basketball and men’s and women’s lacrosse, among other things.

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I’m Derrian Carter, a graduate from Clark Atlanta University, where I served as the co-sports editor of the student newspaper and the president of the school’s NABJ chapter.  I am also a graduate student at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University, where I will complete my sports journalism master’s degree in December.

I am originally from New Orleans, Louisiana, and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. My Sports Journalism Institute internship this summer is with the Tuscaloosa News in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where one of my goals is to provide coverage for the HBCUs in the area and to interview Alabama QB Bryce Young and New Orleans Pelicans forward Herb Jones.

Upon graduation, I’m looking for a position that will allow me to reach my eventual goal of covering an esports team and a collegiate or professional football and basketball team. My long-term goal is to cover a team in the “Big Four” professional sports.

To further introduce myself, I was one of six Valedictorians for my class at Clark Atlanta University, a recipient of the 2021 APSE Garry D. Howard Scholarship, and I finished in third place in the 2021 USBWA Full Court Press competition.

Lastly, I took my first sports reporting class at Morehouse College’s journalism program in Spring 2021 and had my first sports reporting internship in Summer 2021 with Front Office Sports. My journalism foundation comes from Professors James McJunkins, Ron Thomas and Christoper Daniel.

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I’m Nathan Han, a rising senior  at the University of Texas, where I was the sports editor at the Daily Texan. I covered Longhorn football, men’s basketball and baseball in my three years at the Texan. Some of my other journalism experience includes interning at the Dallas Morning News and NBC-DFW.

My goal after graduating is to find a job that helps me toward my long-term goal of covering either the NBA or the MLB. Being a beat reporter in either sport would be a dream come true.

I’ll be a senior in the fall at UT-Austin, where I’m studying journalism and social work. This summer, I’ll be interning at the Kansas City Star for SJI. I’m really excited to help out with covering not just the Royals and the various colleges in the area, but also soccer teams like the KC Currant and Sporting Kansas City.

I was born and raised in Dallas, where I grew up a fan of every local team you can name — especially the Mavs and Rangers. This summer in Kansas City will be the first time I’m not living in Texas, and I’m super excited to branch out and find out if BBQ anywhere else can match up to Texas BBQ.

I’m Callie Lawson-Freeman, a master’s student and track athlete at San Francisco State,  and a contributor for the Sacramento Observer.

I also have a bachelor’s degree in media and cultural studies with a minor in business from University of California, Riverside, where I covered sports for The Highlander Newspaper, interned in external relations for the athletic department, and also ran track.

My first journalism internship was an editorial fellowship with Front Office Sports.

I graduate in May from San Francisco State, where I study broadcast and electronic communication. I’m looking for a position that will allow me to get more sports writing experience. My long-term goal is to cover sports with a consideration of business, race and culture.

I won an award of excellence for best writing from the National Association of Black Journalists, along with athletic all-conference awards for academic performance. I also received departmental recognition for a short documentary I directed and produced about Qunini Manumua, the first female weightlifter to represent Tonga at the Olympics.

I will work this summer as a production assistant through ESPN’s professional rotational program ESPN Next in Bristol Connecticut.

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I’m PJ Morales, the former sports editor of The Daily Tar Heel, the independent student newspaper of UNC-Chapel Hill, where I managed 35 writers and three editors. I’ve also contributed stories to the Charlotte Observer, the Raleigh News and Obsever and USA Lacrosse.

After my senior year, I want to make the jump into beat writing for a major outlet, whether that be for a major newspaper or digital outlet. I think I could excel covering any sport, but my ultimate dream is to become a feature writer or columnist focusing mainly on the intersection of sports and culture through fashion, music and community.

I’ve already built up lots of experience covering UNC athletics, including men’s and women’s basketball NCAA Tournament runs, as well as NCAA and ACC championships for many of the school’s 28 sports.

This coming year, I’ll be serving as the Daily Tar Heel’s director of enterprise, managing our long-form investigative and feature coverage, and will be completing my double-major in Media and Journalism and Modern European History. I’ll spend this summer interning with the Washington Post, where I hope to get some more experience covering the NBA Draft.

Growing up in Miami, Florida, I was always surrounded by sports. Wwhether it was the Dwyane Wade and LeBron James era of the Miami Heat, the trials and tribulations of the Marlins or the echoes of the once-great Dolphins, sports were ever-present.

It was only in college when I started considering journalism as a path, and that’s also when I became deeply interested in the culture that surrounds sports. I started writing for the DTH in my freshman year, and it had become the biggest part of my life ever since.

Once I graduate and head out into the world, I’m excited to devote my creativity and passion to whatever beat or assignment lays in front of me.

I’m Jeremiah Holloway, a recent graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill, where I served as the managing editor for Black Ink and as an assistant sports editor for the Daily Tar Heel.

The summer before my senior year, I interned at the Raleigh News & Observer, and I also covered a few games for them as a freelancer afterwards.

Moving forward, my goal is to continue in sports journalism as a collegiate and professional basketball writer. Along the way, I want to grow in my versatility as a journalist, through writing, multimedia and even marketing.

This past semester for the Daily Tar Heel, I covered Mike Krzyzewski’s final game in Cameron Indoor Stadium as well as the first four games of UNC’s NCAA Tournament run.

This summer, I will intern at the Louisville Courier-Journal. With this experience, I hope to take everything I’ve learned thus far and expand on it. Specifically, I hope to become better as a profile and feature writer.

Fun fact about me, I grew up outside of Greensboro, North Carolina but was born in Baltimore, Maryland. Ironically, my family was in Maryland because my dad had a job as a sports reporter, so maybe I chose the right career path after all.

Bill Russell. Huey Newton. Rickey Henderson. Tom Hanks. Gary Payton. Kamala Harris. Too $hort. Marshawn Lynch. Ryan Coogler. Damian Lillard.

And I’m Devin Bradshaw. 

We represent just a few of those lucky enough to be from Oakland, California, home of the real ones, birthplace of legends. I’m a rising senior at Arizona State. 

I am a former contributor for AZPreps365.com, where I covered beats for all sports at Cesar Chavez High School in Laveen, Arizona. 

My goal is to secure a position covering the NBA or NFL, whether on a beat or nationally  –  where I can build my following and skills as a writer and podcaster. Ultimately, I would like to cover a multitude of sports either in audio or visual format on radio, podcast or television. 

Over the course of my career as a student journalist, I have received awards for Feature stories, Opinion Stories and Podcast multimedia story of the year. I have also been editor-in-chief of The Las Positas Express Publication, in which we won General Excellence in 2020 and 2021. 

This upcoming year will be my second at Arizona State in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism, where I am pursuing my degree in sports journalism.

 This summer, I will intern with Sports Illustrated. I hope to get a chance to go to NFL training camps and cover a few practices and make connections with various writers. 

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I’m Payton Titus, a journalist at the University of Florida, where I’ve worked as a reporter at WUFT News and as a managing editor at The Independent Florida Alligator.

Upon graduation next spring with a degree in journalism and a women’s studies minor, I’m looking for a position that will eventually allow me to work as a sports enterprise and feature reporter. I am particularly drawn to reading, and by extension writing, human interest sports stories

I’ve been named a finalist in the Sports Writing category of the Hearst Journalism Awards and for my local SPJ chapter for a feature I wrote on a women’s tackle football team called the Tampa Bay Inferno.

My Sports Journalism Institute internship this summer is with Yahoo Sports, where I look to write impactful stories about name, image and likeness and the 50th anniversary of Title IX.

I grew up in Jacksonville, Florida, where I swam competitively in middle and high school. Doomed with a 5-foot-4 frame and zero fast-twitch muscle, I took up writing about sports in college instead of playing them.

As a junior in high school, I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, a blood cancer, but have been in remission for four years. And while I’d like to think I was a pretty decent person pre-cancer, I also believe my experience gave me a new sense of empathy that’s been a key part of my storytelling process.

I’m really thankful for the opportunities I’ve been given so far and can’t wait to see where my SJI experience takes me.

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I’m Alexis Kennedy Davis, a recent honors graduate of the nation’s largest HBCU,  North Carolina A&T State University.  

I’m super excited to continue my education on a full ride to Arizona State to get my master’s in sports journalism.

While at N.C. A&T, I served as the lead sports reporter for the university’s newspaper, The A&T Register. I also helped revive the school’s weekly newscast, Aggie News and Views post COVID-19. Also at N.C. A&T, I chartered the first chapter of the Associated Press Sports Editors at an HBCU.

Over the past 11 months, I’ve served as a Rhoden Fellow for ESPN’s Andscape, where I covered the intersection of sports, race and culture.

I am a proud native of Prince George’s County, MD, home to the richest African-Americans. Beyond finances, it has been an absolute privilege to grow up around Black excellence at every turn.

My short-term goal is to be a beat writer for a WNBA or NBA team. I would be ecstatic to earn the opportunity to host a show similar to NBA Today.

Over the summer I will be interning at the Commercial Appeal; see you in Memphis, TN!

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I’m Alberto Camargo, a recent graduate of the University of South Florida, where I served as assistant sports editor for The Oracle, our student newspaper. My previous experience in sports includes an internship with NCAA Digital, where I contributed to the website covering all 90 NCAA championships during the spring season — most famously March Madness.

My goal for my career is to find a job in professional soccer, covering an MLS team, the league entirely, U.S. Soccer Federation or even covering college soccer for the NCAA. My ultimate goal, though, is to cover a FIFA World Cup on location, telling stories in a visual or print format — whatever the opportunity holds for me.

Some awards I’ve won in the past include a Silver Garland Award in Journalism and awards for  anchoring in my high school.

This summer I’ll be interning at the Knoxville News-Sentinel in Knoxville, Tennessee. I’m very excited to get the chance to cover sports out there, whether that be Minor League Baseball, UT sports or One Knoxville SC, a new semi-pro soccer team that is starting this year.

I’m originally from Barranquilla, Colombia, but I’ve been living in Florida all my life. I’m very much a Florida boy, as long as I don’t become a Florida man on the news, I’m all good. I grew up in Lakeland, Florida, about 30 minutes from Tampa and an hour from Orlando. I’m excited to see what a small town boy like me can do in the big sports world.

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My name is Toyloy Brown III, or just TJ for short. I am a 2022 graduate from Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, where  I served as a managing editor of the Quinnipiac Chronicle. 

I was also the executive editor and one of the founders of the For the QUlture magazine, which had the purpose of highlighting students of color at Quinnipiac in an authentic way. 

In 2020, I won two first-place and one third-place journalism awards from the Connecticut Chapter of SPJ.

During my senior year, I was given the “Overall Achievement Award” for the school of communications because of my work inside and outside the classroom. 

Early in my career, I want a beat reporting position in college basketball or the NBA and a space to write features and articles on NBA prospects. 

Eventually, I want to write sports columns on issues that intersect with athletics.

After being accepted into the Sports Journalism Institute's 30th class, I will intern at USA Today, and a goal of mine is to write a couple of New York-centric sports features. 

Speaking of New York, I’m from the Bronx, and specifically Co-Op City. I started my career in journalism at Cardinal Hayes High School, where I became the first student sports reporter as a sophomore. 

One of the high points of my career so far was covering a Quinnipiac men’s basketball team that became the first 11th seed in MAAC tournament history to reach the semifinals.

I’m very thankful to be a part of SJI and can’t wait to kick off my career. 

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I’m Emma Healy, and I’m the deputy managing editor of The Heights at Boston College, where I manage a newsroom of 48 editors and a team of 120 staff writers across six content sections. I also work on the sports desk of The Boston Globe and freelance for USA Lacrosse Magazine. 

I always tell people that I’ll go wherever the jobs are after graduation, but my real hope is to be a feature writer for an NFL team or a news outlet covering the NFL, whether it’s digital or print media. 

I was voted the sports editor of The Heights in the fall of my freshman year. Since then, I have earned third place, fourth place, and honorable mention for my writing in the Associated College Press awards. I was named a finalist for the Online Journalism Awards student portfolio contest last year, and I recently earned a journalism departmental award at Boston College for best student work. 

I’ll be a senior in the fall at Boston College, where I’m majoring in communication with minors in Chinese and marketing. My SJI internship this summer is with The Tennessean in Nashville.

I grew up outside of Cleveland in Chagrin Falls, the last town before the suburbs turned into farms. I grew up playing sports, although my best experience was being the first and only girl on my high school’s varsity football team. I had played pickup games with my friends all through middle school, and I decided to continue it in high school. We were really bad (we went 0-9 my senior year), but it helped me learn how to navigate an environment that feels like (and almost always is) a boys’ club, which has helped  in my journalism career. 

I was the sports editor of The Heights for two years before becoming deputy managing editor, and I’ve covered 28/32 of BC’s varsity sports. My favorites to cover are football, hockey and lacrosse, the latter of which I was fortunate enough in 2021 to cover a national championship.

I’m Richard Silva, a recent graduate of the University of South Florida, where I served as sports co-editor with our student newspaper, The Oracle. I also interned with Rivals during my senior year of college where I covered the school’s football team.

A short-term goal  is to find a job in sports journalism that’ll allow me to grow as both a reporter. My long-term goal is to be a beat reporter for an NFL team and to one day cover a Super Bowl. I also hope to have the freedom on my beat to watch and break down game film for my readers, because that’s something I’ve progressively got into and interests me a ton.

I’ll be heading to Detroit this summer to be an intern with The Detroit News, where I hope to cover a bunch of different sports ranging from soccer with Detroit City FC, basketball with the Pistons and the upcoming NBA draft, football with the Lions, or wherever else I may be needed.

Some other stuff about me is I grew up in New York about an hour and a half north of the city where I was raised a fan of the Yankees, Knicks and most of all, the Giants. Some of the favorite moments I have in my career so far include covering the USF women’s basketball’s first conference championship and run to the second round of the NCAA tournament, as well as being on-site to cover USF football’s game against Cincinnati in 2021 where I saw eventual NFL draft picks like Ahmad Gardner and Desmond RIdder play, and I hope to have many more of these moments in the future. Thank you.

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My name is Varun Shankar and I'm a rising junior at the University of Maryland, where I’m  a sports editor and reporter at our school newspaper, The Diamondback. I’m also a high school sportswriter and news aide for The Washington Post. 

After I graduate, I’d like to eventually cover a major professional sports team as a beat writer. Later in my career, I’d like to transition to a more big picture role that lets me look at the sports league through a wider lens.

I won the John McNamara award, given to the best University of Maryland sportswriter, for my profile on women’s basketball coach Brenda Frese after she won her 500th game at Maryland.

This summer, I'll be working with The Charlotte Observer, where  I'll be cover NASCAR, soccer, minor league baseball and more. My goal is to continue to develop my ability to write effectively about many sports. 

I’ve wanted to be a journalist since I was 10 years old after reading a John Feinstein book series about teenage journalists who got to cover some incredible sporting events. Since that time, I've done everything I can to make that goal possible. I joined the Diamondback in my freshman year; I joined the Post in my sophomore year. I got to cover the Cherry Blossom 10-mile run, a Big 10 Tournament championship and NCAA Tournament games. I'm really excited for the summer and can't thank SJI enough for this opportunity.