My First Published Article

If there is one thing my parents have taught me, it is to be thankful and give someone their two cents when their two cents are do. A big shout out to my mom and dad who helped me see journalism was the major I wanted to stick with and love very much, and to my journalism 200 professor Omar Sofradzija for all his instruction and help. So read on and hopefully this is the first of many!

FIRST PUBLISHED ARTICLE

Felicity Barringer @ MSU

Aspirations for young journalists might be to one day be a columnist for Cosmopolitan, an anchor woman for ESPN, or a reporter for the New York Times. Felicity Barringer was able to achieve the NYT part, but with a degree from Stanford she could probably do anything! Barringer is an accomplished environmental journalist who has worked with the Washington Post as well and covered the Chernobyl explosion in Moscow in 1986. Today Barringer talked to a few aspiring journalists and ones already working in the field about her success, how journalism today is covered, and what we might one day like to write about ourselves. After flying in from Palo Alto, Ca. last night, Barringer munched on a piece of pizza with the rest of us in the small room inside the communication building at Michigan State. One fun fact about the meeting was that out of the 11 people in the room, 5 people were wearing what I see as the stereotypical dark rimmed and square glasses you see reporters wearing. Though Barringer writes for the green-blog, today she remains on staff at the NYT with seven other reporters as a national correspondent for environmental journalism, but she says that does not necessarily limit her to look worldwide or cause her to become "native" and only see what is going on around New York. Barringer is happily married to a former NYT reporter and editor, Philip Taubman, who is working on a book about nuclear threats right now. As of right now he is in Georgia on a trip for business. The meeting was about a half an hour in which Barringer talked mostly about how some environmental journalists end up giving two sides to every story in one story and it really keeps the conflict. The "balance" reporters try and bring to their article ends up doing just the opposite when one side of the story does not have factual evidence to support their claims or does not compare to the impact the other side of the story may have. Barringer also talked about what can cause problems in enviromental writing which usually can relate back to the reporter not continuing to describe the science part involved in the article or maybe not going into enough detail. However, it is an article and a big part of journalism is crunching down information. The meeting was very fun and informational with a few laughs thrown in.

Breaking News Version MSUFH

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA. - The No. 11 Michigan State Field Hockey team’s season ended Saturday after a heartbreaking loss to No. 3 Virginia, 3-2 in overtime in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

The loss came six minutes into the 15 minute overtime period when freshmen Elly Buckley scored the game winning goal and her second of the game.

This is the second year in a row the Cavaliers defeated the Spartans in the NCAA tournament during overtime.

Eight minutes into the game UVA junior forward Paige Selenski scored on a penalty stroke.

Around two minutes later junior Angie Lucik scored a rebound after Kristen Henn nailed the goal post on a corner play.

MSU took the lead with around six minutes left in the first half when senior forward Sabine Van den Assem scored off a penalty corner with the assist from Lucik and senior Joelle Van Ierland.

Buckley’s first goal of the game came ten minutes into the second half to tie up the match and send the game into overtime.

The Cavaliers outshout the Spartans (22-9) during the game, but the Spartans edged out Virginia (5-4) in corners.

Spartan Freshmen goalkeeper Molly Cassidy finished with 13 saves with sophomore Corey Block making a defensive save for the Spartans, while Virginia goalkeeper Kim Kastuk recorded 4 saves.

The Spartans finished their season with a 15-6 overall record while finishing fourth in the Big Ten. This was MSU’s eighth appearance in the NCAA tournament and fourth consecutive year.

NCAA Here We Come!

Field hockey sticks are going in our travel bags as the Michigan State Spartans are heading to the University of Virginia for the first round of the 2010 NCAA Division I Field Hockey Tournament. We will play No. 3 University of Virginia (16-3) on November 13th at 11:30a.m. Virginia will be one of the hosting teams for the first round of the tournament as Wake Forest, Princeton, and us will be traveling there. The complete NCAA bracket for the tournament also designates the hosting sites. Though my prediction for our first game was either Princeton University or the University of Connecticut, Princeton is in our bracket but will have to beat Wake Forest University. Head Coach Rolf shared his feelings on getting into the tournament this year and first game against Virginia with a State News reporter after the show via podcast.  The UVA Cavaliers are very excited and surprised to be hosting the tournament, but are going to take it one game at a time according to the UVA field hockey website. Last year after beating Delaware in the first round of the tournament, we fell to Virginia in the Elite 8 (2-1) in an intense overtime game. UVA has returned many strong scorers and a high caliber goalkeeper. At Michigan State we lost about 70 percent of our scoring, but we've made it this far and it only takes one shot to make a difference. Before we leave probably early Thursday morning on an airplane, a few of us are trying to get ahead on some late night studying. As we get some studying done and prepare for a  very important practice tomorrow Junior defender Holly Sherman for the Spartans gives her two cents on the tournament and approaching game above.

NCAA Selection Show

Playing a division I sport in college guarantees you only so many games, but tonight the Michigan State Field Hockey team was awaiting the chance to see if we could add at least one more game to our schedule. The NCAA Selection Show for Division I Field Hockey took place at 8p.m. tonight as we got to watch the show in the MSU's Women's Basketball video room in the Breslin Center. We met at 7:30p.m. so we could spend some time filling out our guesses on who would make the 2010 tournament. Inside the Breslin Center we were able to see the practice court for out MSU Men's basketball team with their FInal Four Banners hanging as well as quite a few championship trophies. Last year for the 2009 NCAA Selection Show, Men's Basketball Coach Tom Izzo let us use him video room for the event and even brought a congratulatory cake since we were in the tournament with an automatic bid. Unfortunately, Izzo wasn't able to make it to this year's event. Besides the players showing up for the big event, we awaited the results with our medical training staff, our coaches' spouses and their kids, transportation providers, and a few members of the press with cameras and notepads ready. Our Head Coach Rolf Van De Kerkhof walked around the room with his own Flip video camera filming the excitement before the selection show began to live stream. After a few technical complications the video started at 8:03p.m. and be can see here.

Part 2 Bus'n to Chicago

What was different about this trip than others in the past was our entire team got to travel. Because our team is so large and with budget cuts, normally a few of our freshmen who don't play get left behind.On this bus ride however, I had the chance to interview Camille Lambeau who is from Belgium about what she has learned this year at Michigan State and according to her, American schools are just too easy. What also bedazzled up this bus ride with a change was the 23 posters we had hanging up on all the windows of the bus. They were posters made by another teammate and were suppose to inspire and be creative. Jantine Steinmetz designed my poster and cut out a California palm tree in honor of my home state. Jantine is another foreign player on our team whom we love very much for her outgoing and hilarious personality not to mention her crazy amazing skills! I designed a poster for Jantine that had a few cups on it to hold some Band-Aids for her toes, her favorite vanilla Oreos, hand warmers, Jolly Ranchers, and chocolate candies. After the bus trip we ate a big team dinner at Bravo in Evanston and returned to the Hilton hotel were staying at to have a few meetings. That's what's happening on the bus and off the field.

Off the field

So much of sports is all about when it's game time but the 70 minutes the Michigan State Field Hockey is playing on the field does not capture our time spent on the way to the game. On the road again and back to Northwestern university to play the wildcats' field hockey team for the third time this year, MSUFH knows how to make fun out of four hours spent on a bus. From the get-go freshmen goalkeeper Sara Burnosky  aka Big Red, stole a few fellow teammates' seats in the back of the bus including their pillows and went to sleep and didn't wake up until the bus pulled up to the hotel in Evanston, IL. The movie Wall Street was shown on a few really small tv's but the big attraction was Angela Pagura aka Pags who decorated her face until it was almost completely covered in different colored stickers saying, "Test today," "Project Due," "Study Time," ect. While many girls slept (some on the floor) and others like Kristen Henn and Lizzie Helffrich spent time shopping online because sometimes it feels like that's the only chance we'll ever get to buy new clothes. And that's what happens on a bus ride with MSU field hockey girls. More updates about today's bus ride after our first of many meetings tonight!