Erin Burditt |Sports writerWorking in the sports world has always been a dream of mine. When I was young, I wanted to become a professional baseball player more than anything else. Soon thereafter, I realized I loved watching sports more than anything. Growing up and following my favorite teams was always so much fun, especially reading all kinds of different articles. It wasn’t until college that I realized I actually like to write, so I thought “why not write about sports?”I wasn’t the biggest fan of writing throughout grade school and kind of dreading having to write essays and papers because it wasn’t really something I felt I was good at. Luckily, I was able to change my feelings toward writing, and it is something that I want to do as a career.I was lucky enough to intern for the sports media relations director at Augusta University covering the school’s athletics this spring. I spent most of my time writing stories, whether it was for the school newspaper, The Bell Ringer, or as press releases for the athletic department. I also helped with statistics at women's and men's basketball games. Writing a lot during my internship further solidified how I felt toward writing sports, which is what I want to turn into a career.I also went through having to change internship supervisors about a month into my internship. My original supervisor was let go, and I had no idea until I arrived the night of a basketball game. For the last few months of my internship, I was interning for Kadija Dickens, who is also the assistant volleyball coach for the Jaguars (who have back-to-back Peach Belt Conference tournament championships).
About halfway through my internship during the semester, everything was cancelled due to the novel coronavirus pandemic. This put a turn on things to say the least because my internship mainly relied on me being present at sporting events. I talked to someone who allowed me to continue doing my internship, but it was just writing, which I was completely OK with. I wrote articles on different sports topics at the suggestion of Dr. David Bulla, who teaches AU's sports communication course. I had several articles published on the Bell Ringer website. These cover various sports topics that are available for everyone to read.Overall, I enjoyed my time interning in sports media because I got to be around sports for a good portion of my day. I got to learn how to do numerous things that I didn’t know how to do previously. I appreciate the opportunity to work with Coach Dickens and Athletic Director Clint Bryant, along with the coaches and athletes. I enjoyed improving my writing skills, since that is my main focus going forward. Contact Erin Burditt at eburditt@augusta.edu.