Editor’s note: The Daily’s editorial department acknowledges that this article is premised on a conflict of interest. This article is a special feature for Daily Week 2021 that does not represent the Daily’s standard journalistic practices. Additionally, this interview has been edited lightly for length and clarity.
In celebration of Daily week, I sat down with former Executive Sports Editors Alex Viveros, Jake Freudberg and Sruthi Kocherlakota to talk about section memories, Tufts sports, Div. III and the challenges of covering sports during a pandemic.
Alex S.: How did you guys get involved in the Daily?
Jake: I joined the first semester of freshman year. I had done my high school newspaper and covered sports there and wanted to continue at Tufts. Especially because I was interested in journalism, but there are really only a few journalism classes here. Sports were what I knew and my personal sports career had ended.
Alex V.: I was just going around at the club fair and I saw the Daily and I was like, “This looks interesting.” I think Daniel Montoya and Lexi Serino pulled me aside and were like, "Hey, do you want to join the Daily?" and I was like, "Sure!" So they said, "Just sign up here." You know, it's freshman year, everyone's signing up for stuff. So I just signed off. I never had any journalism experience in high school or anything. There was a question that asked, "What section do you want to join?" And I didn't really interpret how newspapers work, so I put sports out of nowhere. I just got involved and I really liked writing about sports.
Sruthi: I wrote for a daily blog in my high school. I was looking to do something with writing at Tufts. Even though it’s not something I want to do professionally, it’s something I really enjoy doing. The reason why I joined Sports is because of Alex [Viveros]. I went to the Daily [general interest meeting]and I put my name down for a bunch of sections. And I was like, I'll see which one I want to write for. And I got an email a week later from Alex asking me to go to a field hockey game and cover it. The game was really fun and I just stuck with it, and the rest is history.
Alex S.: I think I saw an ad on Twitter to write a column and I just reached out to Jake, and there you go.
Alex V.: Advertising works.
Alex S.: What beats have you all been on and how was that experience?
Jake: I’ve pretty much covered every Tufts team at some point. Covering a beat is one of the most valuable things I’ve done at the Sports section because when you actually cover a beat week to week you learn more about the team and you build relationships with sources. Other sections at the Daily and people who are less involved don’t really get that experience.
Alex V.: Jake was doing everything freshman year, I remember that. I was on football my freshman fall, women’s basketball during the winter, and men’s lacrosse during the spring. My freshman year, women’s basketball won the NESCAC championship which was huge, and it was really cool to have mystory be on the front page for the first time. I framed a copy of the paper on my door in Harleston because I was so proud of it.
Sruthi: I covered field hockey my first semester and then both track and swim teams. I also covered women’s lacrosse before [COVID-19]and wrote features in between.
Alex S.: My freshman experience was kind of similar to Alex’s. I was on the men’s basketball beat and they won a crazy NESCAC championship game. Thatstorywas my first on the front page too. Pretty fun to see your name there. That NESCAC championship has to be my best memory with the buzzer beater, two overtimes and everything else. What are your best memories with the sports section?
Alex V.: I'd say number one was the weekend when women's basketball won the NESCAC championship. That weekend was crazy. In the semifinal game against Amherst, Janette Wadolowski made some crazy jump shot with Tufts down by one and they won the game. It was absolutely insane. It was something you'd see in professional sports. It was like Kawhi [Leonard] when he hit that three in Game 7 against the Sixers. I remember I was the only person watching it in my dorm and I was screaming because it was so cool.
Jake: I have two favorite memories. he first one would probably have to be the same as you, Alex, with the men's NESCAC championship and the first weekend of that NCAA tournament last year before the pandemic. It’s pretty rare to have that kind of energy in Cousens Gym. That’s the last time I've covered sports in person. My other favorite memory was writing for the Daily40 issue.One of my interviews was with Don Megerle, who is the coach of the marathon team. We talked for probably almost two hours. He's a super nice guy and that was definitely like my favorite interview that I've ever done with anyone.
Sruthi: My best memory is probably covering atough field hockey game against Middlebury fall semester of my freshman year. There were a bunch of people there and there was a good rivalry between the teams, so it was fun to watch. My favorite article I’ve written was a featureon the club cricket team because it was just so random.
Alex S.: There is something unique about Div. III college sports. It's obviously not the Big Ten [Conference], but it kind of has a "Hoosiers" vibe. It's cool to be in Cousens Gym when it’s packed and the level of play at Tufts is very high. What can you say just about Div. III sports in general, and your experiences covering Div. III sports at Tufts?
Alex V.: We treat Div. III sports here like they’re Div. I. A lot of kids at Tufts could play D1, but they choose Tufts because the community in sports here is really cool. We’re one of the best D3 sports schools in the country. D3 rivalries are also so fun, especially in the NESCAC where all the schools are so close.
Jake: To be honest, I wouldn’t consider myself a D3 sports fan. Some people at Tufts really treat our D3 sports like they’re D1 sports. My favorite part is how small it is. You can walk right up to a coach for an interview after a game, you know who the players are and at the same time the games are fun to watch because the level of play is high. You can see a great game and still have that connection with coaches and players.
Sruthi: The athletes almost train at the level of D1 athletes, so it's really cool to be able to interview them immediately after a game and ask them about their performance, which is something you probably can't do if you're covering D1 sports. It's really cool to hear about their experiences and then get to talk to the coaches on such a personal level.
Alex S.: Yeah, I don’t think I’ve ever been denied an interview request from a player or a coach, which is pretty unique. Sruthi, you were the first executive sports editor in history to serve with no Tufts sports going on because of [COVID-19]. What were the challenges that went along with that?
Sruthi: Like all other things, it was pretty unprecedented. I found that a lot of people really enjoyed covering pro sports, which wasn't as frequent and usually only seen in column articles in the past. So it's really cool, kind of diversifying the content and being able to cover more pro sports. I think some of the challenges came with not having in-person meetings. Jake had established a pretty frequent meeting schedule and we couldn’t meet as much as I would have liked. But it did offer a good opportunity to kind of take the communication into a digital platform by creating a Slack and getting people to come to Zoom meetings.
Alex V.: I’ll pop in here as well. I was editor in chief in the fall and I read all the sports content Sruthi passed along. Our sports writers are really talented and very good at analyzing pro sports. It was really cool to see how engaged people were in the fall, especially the new writers.
Jake: I mean, I was actually the first exec in history to not have sports.
Alex S.: Not for a full semester though! You got quite a bit.
Jake: Keep in mind [COVID-19] ended sports in the second half of March. At that point, there were no Tufts sports and no professional sports. We had no idea how many people would be interested in writing or how much we should be doing. I was surprised at how many people were really interested in writing during that period. We put out some stuff, somehow. It’s great to see that people could adapt to that.
Alex V.: I remember one of my early memories during the pandemic, sort of when we were locked down and stuff I rememberreading one of Alex's columns about a baseball game that happened a while back, and it stuck with me because I was like, maybe right now to kill the time I should be watching baseball from a long time ago. It was really cool getting to edit that during what was an insane period of time.
Sruthi: One more thing. I think because Tufts athletes were deprived of their athletic season last semester, a way to kind of show the community we were thinking about them was being able to profile athletes and teams and write about how they were dealing with the pandemic. So I think that was also a great way to create content.
Alex S.: Last question, the classic cliché. What’s the advice you’d give to a freshman just joining the section?
Jake: Take any assignment.
Alex S.: That would definitely help us out.
Jake: I covered a lot of sports I didn’t know anything about. Having the experience of covering something you don’t know anything about is both challenging and fun, and a helpful skill going forward. You’ll meet interesting people if you’re willing to take on whatever.
Alex V.: I’ll just say the lessons you learn in the sports section will help you in whatever journalism you want to do. You’ll learn how to do interviews and fact check like crazy because we’re always looking at statistics. Don’t be afraid to get out there, because what you learn in sports is invaluable. I’ve talked to a few professional journalists who said that a lot of people start out in sports and move to other areas like news, policy, things like that. Sports are, on paper, very analytical, but you get the opportunity to make a story out of that. Always make sure to do the interviews before you write because that’s where the story comes from.
Sruthi: I’ll say something similar to Jake. Just say yes to everything. The more you accept, the more you'll learn about journalism, interviewing and talking to people. Also ask for help when you need it because sometimes it can be overwhelming covering sports or any story in general. There can be a lot of moving pieces and there's people there to help you if you need. It’s very easy to start writing for the sports section, so definitely reach out if you're interested.
