Hello! My given name is Samantha Ann Calvert, but you can call me Sam. I am a senior Journalism student at Elon University. I am an Honors Fellow, which encompasses a lot of my time and energy, but I also work for our award-winning student newspaper, The Pendulum. Currently, I’m in the middle the research for my Honors Thesis, due to be presented to an Honors board, as well as in several academic settings, in April. I am working with a faculty mentor to document the social history of black men in sports, looking specifically at the first major black athlete in professional baseball, hockey, NASCAR and tennis, and how that relates to how the media covered race in athletics.
I have planned on studying abroad since I first decided I was going to Elon because I knew I wanted to be able to experience another culture in a way that cannot be achieved simply in the classroom. I think there is something about living somewhere that allows you to experience it in a way photos or even visits can’t encompass. For that reason, I studied abroad for four months in Toledo, Spain last spring. I love the Spanish culture, and it was so amazing to have been able to spend that time there — although it wasn’t nearly enough.
I’ve spent the past two years working at The Pendulum, first as the assistant sports editor and then as the sports editor. Now, I get to work in a different side of the paper as the online managing editor. I am extremely interested in the field of Sports Journalism and, although it is drifting more and more towards interactive media rather than just writing — my passion — I am very excited about what new opportunities that change offers the field. In my two years with the sports section, I helped create a weekly podcast discussing national sports news, as well as an additional weekly breakdown of each upcoming football game in the fall. I also had the opportunity to work with a blog specifically for our section of the newspaper, and I redesigned it to fit our specific needs. We use it to comment on national news, live blog during sporting events and provide analysis on Elon athletics. I’ve also created a Pendulum Sports Twitter, where we are working toward building a following and updating Elon fans on all the athletic news going on at the university, and spent time trying to add more interactive online elements to our stories, as well, such as videos and graphics. With my new title, I get to work with this new media more, functioning as the blog editor for the newspaper’s seven blogs and the manager of social media and podcasts. It’s been exciting to get to really learn about this other side of the journalism world.
Because of all of the different things I’ve been able to do with social media in sports and now in general, I’ve become a resource for the rest of staff as to how to incorporate this into our product more and more to interact with the community. It’s been a great experience to learn more about the interactivity between the news media and the community via the Internet, and it’s something I want to continue to read and learn more about.
I also had the opportunity to be present to see our newspaper win its first ACP Pacemaker award and become an ACP Online Pacemaker finalist for the first time. Both were amazing experiences that I will never forget, as it was just four years ago that The Pendulum underwent a huge redesign, and I am proud to be able to say I was a part of that achievement.
I was raised the only child of a father who played virtually every sport growing up and who knows more facts about the world of sports than anyone I’ve met. Under such circumstances, my childhood seasons revolved around sports. In the fall, he and I were watching football games. When those ended, we switched to basketball, and then to baseball in the spring and summer. Tennis and golf were mixed in throughout the year. I became enamored with the world of sports and knew I wanted to work very closely with it. My love of numbers gave me a passion for the statistics compiled in sports, which led directly to a passion for the history of the game. My love of writing then led me to the field of sports journalism, where I’ve desired to work for as long as I can remember. Working with the newspaper over the past two years has reinforced that desire even more. I hope to be able to continue working with The Pendulum for the rest of my college career and to continue working in the field of sports journalism long after I am through at Elon.
