Summing up your Massachusetts Daily Collegian experience in 850 words or less is no easy task. So, sorry, I’m going over – even if by just a little bit.

As much as I’ve tried not to think about it, the time has finally come to put pen to paper and to sign the door in Office No. 113 of the Campus Center basement with my name, position and an inspirational quote or something funny.

I was admittedly a bit jealous of my peers the first time I came into the Collegian office in the spring of my freshman year. I transferred to the University of Massachusetts after spending the fall term at UMass Dartmouth, unable to write about college sports for a newspaper because The Torch, the student newspaper there, was biweekly and had no sports section. So, even if I spent the rest of my UMass experience at the Collegian, I wouldn’t be a four-year writer.

That really mattered to a lot of people down there – there was a strong sense of pride from fellow scribes that had taken the punches that were the long, strenuous, 2 a.m. nights on desk wrestling with Adobe InDesign and had come out better for it. That wasn’t going to be me, but I accepted that shortly thereafter because, really, there wasn’t much I could do about it.

Because I had covered some sports in high school for my local paper, The Sun Chronicle, before I walked into Andrew Cyr’s sports meeting that January, I thought it was a birthright that I would cover whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted to cover it. I quickly found out that wasn’t the case, and dues had to be paid in order to sit in the press box at McGuirk Alumni Stadium or high above the ice at the Mullins Center.

So, I paid them. On an almost daily basis. I froze outside Lorden Field more than a handful of times that spring covering baseball as best I could in hopes of being hired as an assistant sports editor, and it worked. I too could now wrestle with InDesign, which felt like a cool, elite club to be a part of. That fall, I covered football with Cyr and fellow assistant Adam Aucoin, and in the winter I traveled all over New England covering hockey with assistant Nick Souza and the prodigy Ryan Ames. I missed out on a lot of weekends with friends, but instead spent them in cars and arenas watching sports with others. To this day, these remain some of the best times I had as a reporter.

My work was good enough to warrant my hiring to lead the section as head editor my junior year. But I instead left the Collegian following the summer months to pursue another job opportunity. The section was in capable hands when I hired assistant Phil Sanzo, but I missed out on a lot of coverage that fall that I wish I had been a part of.

I stayed in touch with peers when I left and always kept up with the coverage, particularly sports, and when the Collegian needed a night editor last spring semester, I jumped at the chance. But I found myself feeling a lot like I did at my first sports meeting, jealous of everyone who had stuck it out and continued to grind through the fall semester. I realized I wasn’t even going to be a three and a half-year Collegian-writer, either.

But things came full circle for me when I applied to be the Collegian’s managing editor last spring. I thought I had decent credentials, but the obvious elephant in the room that I wasn’t there the entire fall didn’t help my case, and I didn’t get the job. I wasn’t sure I would just stick around as a night editor, and hoped I’d be able to cover sports even as just a staffer for my senior year. A couple days later, I was offered the position after Jackson Cote went to The Boston Globe for a co-op.

I’ve spent the last year trying to prove myself worthy of the position and have worked hard to do whatever it is that a managing editor does. In my case, it was helping Editor-in-Chief Hayley Johnson steer the ship through the uncertain times of a newsroom in 2019, including being nearly kicked out of our office but somehow getting it back at the 11th hour.

The Collegian has done a lot for me, both personally and professionally.

It’s where I learned how to cover sports, and I mean really cover sports, from a lot of really good writers as an underclassman. It’s where I had figure out how to manage my time by juggling internships and classes while still being expected to file quality stories on deadline. It’s where I made some really great friends along the way, including my best friend and girlfriend, Tess Halpern.

I’ve been fortunate to learn from a lot of great people through my three years working at the Collegian. I was happy that a good guy like Phil was given a really great opportunity – one that he earned – to run the sports section. I was even happier that Jackson was given the chance to work at the Globe.

When I first accepted the managing editor position, I thought about how many great writers have come through the Collegian and held leadership positions in this office. I feel so incredibly grateful to be among them, even in my own unique way.

Kyle DaLuz was the managing editor of the Collegian and he can be reached at [email protected].