A letter from the editor
Roughly a year ago, I was offered the opportunity to edit the sports section of The Cor Chronicle. At that time, I wasn’t sure what to expect. If anything, I thought it would mostly entail reporting batting averages and track times.
I never imagined how much I would learn about our university culture and the stories that build it up each day. Over time, word by word, I came to understand the way our community is stitched together by the narratives we tell each other about ourselves. The lives of our athletes are among the most diverse and powerful stories we have.
They are stories of struggle and triumph as often as they are stories of frustration and disappointment. In spite of training and preparation, wins and losses are ultimately unpredictable. But that unpredictability is precisely what makes it worthwhile to participate in it. It’s why watching sports and talking about them is so entertaining. Sports give us a live drama, a performance that can turn from tragic to triumphant in a split second.
It is the only drama wherein each player is a protagonist in their own right. Every person in the athletics department has a story worth telling. When you dig deep enough, you find that the people working behind the scenes are just as interesting as the star players. From coaches to sanitation workers, you can learn an important lesson from anybody you talk to in the world of sports.
Throughout my time in athletics, the theme of balance has run through each of my stories, primarily because college athletics and student life in general depends on balance. In order for a University of Dallas athlete to succeed, they have to find some way to juggle training, recovery, performance and a mountain of academic responsibility. Many of them even take on creative responsibilities, such as music or studio art. Without careful attention to balance, these athletes can face an enormous amount of stress. And yet, with a disciplined grace and dogged determination, these students overcome the obstacles they choose.
As the editor-in-chief of The Cor Chronicle for the upcoming year, I will have the great fortune of reading many more of these stories, not just from the athletic perspective, but hopefully from all perspectives stretching across the student body. My greatest goal is to follow in the footsteps of Editor-in-Chief Thérèse Castillo, whose tireless dedication and professionalism has set a precedent for future editors to continue making this newspaper engaging, entertaining and your first-hand source for the stories that make the University of Dallas come to life on the page.
Though we are not exactly The New York Times, The Cor Chronicle has something important to say about our community, primarily because it comes from you. Anybody can be a guest writer. Anybody can come to a practicum meeting and share an idea for a great story. Our curriculum puts enormous emphasis on the greatest stories mankind has ever had to tell. The Cor Chronicle puts that same emphasis on the greatest stories that we tell about ourselves; on the stories you have to tell about yourselves.
To say I am grateful to be a part of that process would be an understatement. For now, all I can say is thank you to all of the people who have helped me come to this point. From the bottom of my heart, I look forward to hearing your story.