Writing his way to excellence
Joseph
Vasquez / The Collegian
Last month Fresno State
graduate Joshua Scroggin received national recognition from the
Society of Professional Journalists for columns he wrote for The
Collegian during the spring 2004 season. |
By Chhun Sun
The Collegian
Graduate Joshua D. Scroggin
always spoke his mind when he wrote for The Collegian, even if it meant
his words might prompt angry messages from people in the forms of letters,
e-mails and phone calls. But to him, expressing his opinion was worth
it.
Last month, the Society of Professional Journalists nationally recognized
the 24-year-old Scroggin for best sports column writing in 2004, beating
out sports writers from schools known for their journalism programs. That
means colleges like Missouri University, New York University and University
of California at Los Angeles.
“It’s all worth it. All that you give up, all the late nights,
all the classes that I skipped to do interviews, the three years at The
Collegian and all of it legitimizes this award,” said Scroggin,
who graduated with a bachelor’s degree in print journalism in 2004.
Greg Lewis, his adviser and professor for three years, knows the award
is a reflection of the talent at Fresno State.
“It proves something that the faculty knew all along, that we can
stand tall and show our talent on a national level,” Lewis said.
“Josh is a very talented journalist and he deserves every bit of
that award.”
With national recognition under his belt and working as a college sports
writer and columnist at The Merced Sun-Star, Scroggin wants to write columns
at a metro daily. But for now, he appreciates his award and looks at it
as motivation for other aspiring journalists after him.
“We have a quality product and quality students and I don’t
think that gets stressed enough to people,” he said about The Collegian.
It wasn’t difficult for Scroggin to come up with ideas to write
for his column, Simple Text. At the student newspaper — where he
was a senior writer, sports editor and editor in chief — there were
plenty of things to write about. All he had to do was pick and choose
his subject.
“It was easy at Fresno State because so much was going on in the
sports world,” Scroggin said referring to controversies like basketball
ticket distribution, disobedient football fans and misbehaving coaches.
It was all a part of his sports world.
The difficult part was picking and choosing what he wanted to submit to
the annual journalism contest.
So Scroggin went with the article he felt had a chance, although he knew
there would be tough competition.
“I was just hoping to win anything, even third place in regional,”
he said.
He chose columns about the swimming team being cut from the sports budget,
about the dance team getting eliminated and about former women’s
basketball coach Stacy Johnson-Klein not taking the team to its best potential.
In one of those columns he wrote, “The swimmers did what they could
to try to raise money and avoid being cut from the athletic budget. Who
knew that ‘what they could’ included hand-scrubbing bird crap?”
referring to some of the swimmers wiping down the red seats at Bulldog
Stadium to raise money.
Then, in March of this year, he received information that he’d won
the award in his region, which included Arizona and Nevada.
Then he won the national award. He found himself doing a wiggle dance
at his office desk in Merced, causing copy editors and other reporters
to stare. But he was in disbelief.
“Oh, my God, I won nationals. Oh, my God, I won nationals,”
Scroggin remembered saying. After dancing around the office, he sat down
in front of his computers and e-mailed professors, colleagues and friends
about his award.
One of the people who received that e-mail was Bill McEwen, a reporter,
columnist and former sports editor and columnist for The Fresno Bee. Scroggin
met McEwen through a mentoring program created by the mass communication
and journalism program on campus.
“I credit him immensely for what I’ve learned, everything
he taught me helped me win this award,” Scroggin said.
But McEwen said he couldn’t take all the credit, noting Scroggin
always wanted him to review his columns and articles.
“Joshua impressed me with his work ethic and desire to improve his
reporting and writing,” McEwen said. “He was going to Fresno
State, reporting and writing columns for The Collegian and working part
time. I knew right away that he had the work ethic needed to succeed in
journalism.”
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