By: Gabbie Granoff
Senior journalism student and Daily Collegian assistant sports editor Mike Maynard is no stranger to getting published, but he recently earned a particularly prestigious byline in the Boston Globe on October 22. Maynard was asked to cover the MIAA Division 2 Golf Championship in Pittsfield as a freelancer for the Globe.
Earlier this year, Maynard applied for the Boston Globe Co-Op Program, an internship program for college students, for the fall semester. As he made it further and further along the interview process, Maynard realized he did not want to do the program. He would have had to live in Boston for the semester and he wanted to make the most of his senior year by staying on campus.
When Maynard was selected for the co-op, he decided to turn it down. For a while, he thought that was it - one job application that went well, but just didn't work out.
“I hadn’t really heard from them in months,” Maynard said. “Then a few days before the golf tournament, I got an email.”
The same assistant sports editor who had interviewed Maynard for the co-op, Craig Larson, wanted to give him the opportunity to cover the championship for the Boston Globe. The reporter who freelanced for the Globe the previous weekend, UMass Journalism alum Colin McCarthy, was unavailable, and Maynard was closer to Pittsfield than the Boston Globe’s reporters. When Larson and McCarthy were talking about possible replacements, Larson pulled up Maynard’s resume and decided to give him a call. Naturally, Maynard said yes to the opportunity.
“I had covered high school sports like that for MassLive for an entire year, so I knew what I was getting myself into,” Maynard said. “But it was still, a little bit nerve-wracking, just with that extra like, ‘Oh, this is the Globe.’”
Maynard’s article was published on the Globe’s website and printed in the sports section of the paper. Both of his parents purchased the physical paper to see their son’s name in print in the same paper he grew up reading.
“I didn’t go get one myself, but they both got the paper and showed me,” Maynard said. “It’s cool obviously, seeing my name. That’s the first time my name’s been in anything print-wise that isn’t a magazine we did for the Collegian.”
The Globe has been a constant in Maynard’s life, and he feels that it was part of the reason he decided to pursue sports journalism.
“It’s been a part of my life since I can remember,” Maynard said. “It definitely was part of the puzzle there. Reading stories in the Globe was something that I did with my with my dad, especially on a regular basis.”
Maynard said his takeaway lesson from his experience was to keep every door open. Though he initially turned down the Globe co-op, he reached out to Larson after his interview to thank him for his time, and hoped that he could reconnect with the Globe in another way in the future. He plans to keep this in mind going forward when he is applying for jobs and making connections.
“You’ve got to put yourself in those situations where you can get that opportunity, get that call,” he said.
Maynard hopes to continue to have opportunities to freelance for the Globe, but for now says he will cherish this experience.
“It’s an awesome thing to be able to say that I have a byline in the Globe now, regardless of where my career takes me,” Maynard said.