It wasn't that long ago, so it can be vividly reminiscent of covering the first National Championship game in Tampa in 2019. I remember trying to clean up confetti from my keyboard when I tried to submit a story about the deadline from my courtside seat. I remember the disappointment of my face Notre Dame Player. I remember seeing Diddy Richards jump into Narissa Smith's arm. Oregon and two teams that lost in the semi-finals uconn – And we question whether the Husky reign is over and whether Sabrina Ionescu can return here next season (Thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic, what we got answers there is no). Above all, I remember being obsessed with women's college basketball.
I keep my corkboards in my home office, which is covered by media qualifications for the past decade I spent as a professional journalist. One from a visit to NASA's flight facility on Wallops Island, Virginia, two from Awesome Army-Navy Games, some from the Wild NASCAR race, one from the fun Division III Lacrosse Championship, the other from the Pine Paper and plastic from the memorable US opening of Hearst, and countless college basketball games.
There is a blue ACC strap that holds qualifications from the four women's college basketball final four that I covered, with one thumb tuck hanging on the board. The constants in those passes are my name, but everything else is different, from the championship logo to the colour scheme, to the outlet I covered the game. Each of these four credentials has a different news organization printed. I think they are like that. Because I thought it was important to be in each of them, to be in the game, to capture moments, to tell stories, to put boots on the ground. Therefore, the names of each of these qualifications represent the people who paid me the most that year, but I worked in multiple publications in those tournaments.
last year, I produced 64 pieces Content from nine different news organizations during the crazy March. Previous year, 60 with 10 outlets. 2021-22 season, 98 content from 12 different news organizations – all women's college basketball.
Again, like I said, I was hooked.
I'm not pointing that workload toot my corner. I'll take note of that as other writers and reporters like me do the same kind of work in this field. We don't do that. Because I like to calculate extra paperwork and mileage when tax season comes, or I like to badger the editor with an invoice, or I can't afford a media hotel. Because I like to stay at the suspicious Airbnb.
Because we love sports and our work.
Ask most people who have tried to make women's sports a full-time life. This space is not a stepping stone. You have to love it. You have to get hooked on storytelling. You need to get hooked on the game. You need to know your subject and audience in great detail. You can't wait to tell readers and fans what you just saw, not for money. You want to explain it to them over and over again. These athletes, these coaches, these teams, and their stories have been overlooked for too long – I want to give them the attention and spotlight they deserve. On the folding of the newspaper, the lead stories of the nightly news are pinned to the top of the website's homepage, and in the first thing, an omnipotent algorithm spits out on Instagram.
I want to believe that all of them apply to me – I love this, that I fought for fair coverage, and that I grind to tell these stories and do it I believe I worked so hard to make a living. But then, the con man syndrome creeps up, making my resume a bit uncomfortable or pat it on the back. I'm just a reporter, a writer, and this is 2025, so I'm a content creator. So I let my work speak for itself.
My name is Mitchell Northam And since 2018, when Howard Megdall gave me the opportunity to cover, I've been covering women's sports. WNBAAtlanta's dream. By the next spring, I was preparing to cover the first Final 4 on NCAA.com and cover the season NWSL's North Carolina's courage For the Orlando Sentinel. Since then, I have become a member of the AP Top 25 voter and the USBWA board of women's basketball. USA TODAY'S For victory, Baltimore bannerAssociated Press, Raleigh News and Observers, Miami HeraldNext and North Carolina Public Radio.
And that's what I'm aiming to continue doing here with SB Nation. There, I will become a senior writer covering women's college sports for breakaways. Let's talk victory and A broken heartAbout hindrance and comebackAbout Record Setter and Barrier breakerAbout A sweet victory and An unbearable defeatAbout Change Maker and Trend SetterAbout Iconic Star and Contributors under the radarAbout Big Player and Fun momentsAbout Inspiration and tragedyAbout fan, The impact of moneyand Changes to sports. And I'm not just the words written, video, photograph and audio Same thing. Some of these stories focus on the world of women's college basketball, while others are set in softball, volleyball, lacrosse, soccer, field hockey and gymnastics. Others take part in emerging sports like wrestling and flag football. I've made women's college basketball (particularly ACC) a bit of a niche for the past few years, but I'm excited to broaden my lens and cover the sport and others at the national level.
These are the kinds of stories I have tried to tell in women's sports over the past few years. The difference is that these are all in one place, under the breakaway flag.
I am also very grateful to have this opportunity. It's difficult to come up with an exact number, but it's safe to say that there aren't many writers and reporters who cover women's sports full time at the national level. Whatever their appearance is, it is a miniature compared to the number of people who cover male sports as their sole job. After years of stitching together freelance gigs and paying my own way to the last three Final Four and other road trips for games across the nation, I told these stories and backing them I am grateful that there is a unique platform for news organizations investing in female sports coverage.
Soon I'll have the opportunity to add a fifth to my Final 4 credentials collection. Again, my name is the same, but everything else changes. This time, we look down at the “SB Nation” hanging from Tampa's neck in April.
That's a bit of a full circle moment for me. One of the first places I've written so far was Black & Red United on a blog about DC United in 2013 when I was a student at a school I hadn't heard of yet. Finally, I wrote on six different team sites on SB Nation, gained valuable reps and learned from great people along the way.
About 12 years later, I returned to SB Nation with a new title and a different stage in my life, but my goals are still the same. At Breakaway, we are about to talk about how athletes, coaches and women's sports people continue to break through.
To put it more simply, I'm here to make something interesting and good. See y'all on the internet.
