Danielle Gariglio

I was extremely fortunate to be an intern for the Sports Media and Information Department for the URI Athletics' Program. I had a multitude of different jobs throughout the course of my semester interning. On football game days I would tweet live updates from the @RhodyFootball twitter account or tweet pictures from the game from the @GoRhodyRams account and during men's soccer games I would film the games for fans watching at home. During women's basketball games I color commentate the live broadcast for the video feed via the A10 Network's website, and during men's basketball games I run the stat sheets during every media timeout to reporters, radio broadcasters and both team's benches. On top of this I was also lucky enough to write several feature stories on URI athletes as well as start my own blog on GoRhody.com. Despite having so many different roles and tasks I gained invaluable experience as to what it's like to work for college athletics.

 

When I look back on my time spent in the Sports Media and Information office, I can't even begin to describe all of the things I learned. One of the most shocking revelations was the amount of hours the three workers, the director and two coordinators in the office, put into their jobs. They certainly do not work a regular 9-5 day job and I feel like it is necessary to applaud each of them on the hard work they put into the URI athletics program to make it run like a well-oiled machine. The Sports Media and Information office handles press releases, news articles, game recaps and even just making sure that the scoreboards work on game days. My initial goal at the start of the semester was to become a more versatile writer and increase my strengths in both editing my own work and coming up with creative pieces. After writing seven feature stories for GoRhody.com I could definitely see improvement in my writing. In addition to working on editing my own pieces, my internship advisor, Shane Donaldson, also served as my editor and upon completing each story we would sit down and go over what changes he would make and also tell me what he liked most about each piece. I also wanted to become a more confident interviewer and public speaker and because of how many athletes, coaches and staff workers I have spoken with over the course of the semester I am proud to say that interviewing has become like second nature to me. 

 

My proudest moment during my internship experience came when I wrote my second blog post about why I play the game of softball. It was a personal story that came to me when I heard the news of a young girl that passed away from brain cancer and who's story I had been following for over a year. When I sent the story to my internship advisor I had prefaced him about how personal the story was and that I may have gotten a bit too emotional through my voice of the story. I received an email from him later that day, an email that was also sent to every staff member in URI Athletics saying, "In the five years I have been letting athletes write blogs, this is by far the best I've ever read." Later that week I received compliments from the university's athletic director as well as my internship advisor's boss, who's compliments seem to come few and far between. I wrote that blog in late October and just when I thought all of the attention surrounding it had died down, my internship advisor just texted me this past Monday saying how he submitted the piece to Quadangles, the URI Alumni Magazine, and the editor loved it and it will be published in the next issue! Despite being somewhat embarrassed of the emotion I showed in my writing for that story, things turned out quite well in my favor. 

 

This internship has meant more to me than I ever could have hoped for. Not only did I gain invaluable skills but I also feel like it has opened doors for me in what my future career options could be, and has also allowed me to gain some leverage in finally having my work published into actual websites and magazines. I used to think that I might want to work in athletics one day but after my internship experience I have a better real world gauge on what that job might actually entail, and that it is a job I would love to have one day. Because of my internship I have built relationships and networked with professionals in the field that I one day hope to begin a career in. I am extremely thankful to my internship advisor and his coworkers for allowing me to join their staff this fall!