When was the last time you went to a Chapman sporting event?

Crickets.

Let’s rephrase that question: have you ever been to a Chapman sporting event?

Crickets.

Make it happen. Even if it’s just one game.

When I first started writing for The Panther, I wrote my stories and did all my interviews over Zoom. I thought to myself, “Man, this is boring, why did I even take this job?” It wasn’t because Chapman sports weren’t fun to watch but mainly because COVID-19 prevented anything from happening.

It’s been two and a half years, and in all the time I’ve covered sports for The Panther, I can honestly say that there are many inspiring stories and experiences brewing right in front of us as we pass by campus sports facilities every day and hear athletes hyping each other up during practices and games. 

The stories are there, but who is going to tell them?

When I first started writing for The Panther, most of my stories revolved around athlete or coach profiles, season updates, game updates and hot sports topics around the world. These were all meaningful stories to me, bringing light to a part of campus that few students talk about.

It’s easy to talk about team accomplishments, victories, records set and so on. Anyone can breeze through my story and say, “Wow, nice performance by so and so,” or “wow, I didn’t even know this record was possible to break.” But something was missing as I covered these topics.

I felt that two things were missing in my story: personal connection and capturing jaw-dropping moments in a game. 

When I began including these topics in my stories, they had more of a human touch to them. There was a certain liveliness and excitement of placing the audience right in front of the game with vivid descriptions and fast-paced writing that keeps the reader at the edge of their seat.

This is all thanks to the people I’ve interviewed and their willingness to detail their lives inside and outside of the sport. My perspective on sports writing shifted, especially this semester, and now is when I realize the value of sports at Chapman.

Chapman isn’t like a Division I school where athletes attend and put all their eggs in one basket, with the mindset of “going pro or bust.” One of the big differences between a Division I school and Chapman — a Division III school — is that here, there is more emphasis balancing academics with sports.

Most people that I’ve come across through interviews play their sport not just to go professional after college, although that’d be an amazing feat, but mainly because they wanted to continue growing passion for a sport they played since high school or even back when they were kids.

The same sort of mentality applies to many coaches too. They played a sport all their life and wanted to give back to it. They aren’t coaching to earn a nice six or seven figure salary, which is what a coach can earn if they’re at big college sports programs like the University of California, Los Angeles or the University of Michigan.

So if Chapman coaches and athletes aren’t necessarily in the sport for fame and fortune, then what would be the point of paying attention to what they do? I mean, it’s just Division III sports, after all.

Set aside this thinking for a moment, and let me just share some of my personal favorite moments from writing sports this semester. Hopefully this will entice you to go out and watch a game or even start a conversation with an athlete if you sit next to them in class.

Swimming and diving head coach Juliet Suess ushered in a new era of coaching, and with their focus on listening to athletes and caring for them as people more than just their production in practices and competitions, they led the team to breaking 39 school records in one year of coaching.

The Chapman baseball team started 3-7 on the season and could have easily thrown in the towel, but are now 26-14 and entering their sixth consecutive playoffs because of their young freshmen talents at pitching and batting, making it known that they are ready to take the reins from the veterans.

Softball head coach Janet Lloyd reached 700 wins this season and will enter her 40th year of coaching next year. This all stemmed from her transfer to Chapman her senior year after an ACL injury and nonchalantly taking up coaching with her father post-graduation even with uncertainty around her future career path. 

In a matchup in April, Chapman men’s lacrosse annihilated previously No. 8 ranked San Diego State University (SDSU), bursting out of the gates with intensity and showering SDSU players with goals that left spectators in awe. Now, they will be playing in the Men's Collegiate Lacrosse Association national championships as a No. 4 seed, right behind Division I schools Viriginia Tech, Georgia Tech and Liberty University.

Junior English major Marjorie Stemmler commenced her archery journey two years ago and is putting her academics and future career on the line to hopefully play in the Olympics someday.

That’s just scratching the surface with all that I mentioned. How do I know? Because I am currently the only sports writer on The Panther, and I know with a bigger team there would be three or four times the amount of stories that I listed off.

Hidden in the background waiting to be unlocked, these stories were eventually opened just from taking a brief moment or block of time in my day to talk with athletes and coaches or watch a game.

So get out there and watch a game. You might learn a thing or two about the types of students and athletes that come to Chapman. Who knows, you might also love Chapman sports enough to become a sports writer for The Panther like myself. 

Wherever you fall on the spectrum, you will not regret giving Chapman sports a chance.