Covering NC State sports as a kid who grew up a Wolfpack fan in “enemy territory” — Durham, North Carolina — wasn’t something I ever thought possible. Now, putting my name and words in print has etched my name in NC State and Technician history a little bit — mementos I have kept every time.
I don’t know how many other writers or editors remember exactly when they decided they were going to join Technician. Like them, I don’t remember the exact day. But the reason for why? I remember it as if I am still a correspondent.
A freshman year that was still reeling from the effects of COVID-19 and isolation, I never felt like the community I wanted was there for me, but it was something I knew I desperately wanted. Spending seven years in the same place before NC State, you forget that finding a community and friends is harder than you think.
At the end of the fall semester of my sophomore year, I walked across campus to the third floor of the Witherspoon Student Center, not sure if anything would change once I had left. As it turns out, it changed a lot. It changed my life.
Ushering me into the office to give me the Technician spiel was, at the time, Assistant Sports Editor Ethan Bakogiannis. What that conversation was has been long forgotten, but what I did takeaway was my first article assignment and that sports meetings are on Tuesdays.
From then on, every Tuesday, I was in the Technician office talking about sports with people I never thought would become some of my closest friends.
Without Ethan putting me to work right away, you probably never get to read this letter — it probably never gets written. I love playing tennis matches that felt like Federer vs. Nadal, but definitely didn’t look like it. Or doing a Tony Romo impression that never fails to get a laugh.
Thank you, Sam Overton, for taking me under your wing as the Carolina Hurricanes beat. Beyond the Canes you have been there when I needed it most, as an advisor and a friend.
To Jenna Cuniowski and Erin Ferrare, you guys were the blueprint for me, I look up to you guys more than you know. Thanks for letting me pester you all this time.
Thank you to Colby Trotter, Connor VanDerMark, Jakob Halbur and Ethan Rimolt. It would be easy for seven-plus hour-long print nights to be the death of me, but you guys made it fun and something I couldn’t miss.
I hope you guys got as much joy out of watching me spin around in a chair 100 times before doing a lap of the office as I did ordering a cheesesteak stromboli from NY Slice that took 30 minutes to make and watching Jakob drop his food on the floor.
Thank you to all of Volume 105 Editorial Board; there isn’t a group of people I’d rather make the paper with. Thank you to those of you who made up the Super Stokers, Full Court Press or whatever you want to call it. Playing intramural basketball with you guys was the highlight of my Thursdays and hitting a buzzer-beater in the last game is something I won’t forget.
Thank you to the readers. I never would have thought that an article would change football head coach Dave Doeren’s postgame vocabulary or call for me to be tarred and feathered. I enjoyed the positive feedback as much as I did riling you up.
Thank you, thank you, thank you and a million times more. It’s an honor and a privilege to have been a part of Technician these last two-and-a-half years. People say to live life without regrets but if there was one thing I’d change, I’d have walked up to the third floor of Witherspoon on day one.
Thank you,
Aidan Carlson, Assistant Sports Editor
