Corvallis, Oregon. Pullman, Washington. South Bend, Indiana.
My four years at the Daily Bruin have taken me places I never thought possible.
I started as a freshman writer in awe of the men’s volleyball team and finished my four-year stint covering the men’s basketball team in the Final Four.
Along the way, I had stints on “Cold Pizza” on ESPN, run-ins with cops in Moscow, Idaho, sit-down interviews with John Wooden and media access to the private parties in Las Vegas during NBA All-star weekend.
I spent long Tuesday nights in that Kerckhoff office waiting for baseball late runs. And I also had the chance to witness multiple NCAA championships on our little cubicle TV, for sports I never cared about until I started working at The Bruin.
I witnessed firsthand the rebirth of our men’s basketball program and worked with one of the most special UCLA athletes: Arron Afflalo.
I didn’t always realize how lucky I was, but I certainly do now.
Because of the Daily Bruin, I spent time with the legendary coach Al Scates. He was always willing to spend an hour with me, talking about volleyball and everything else.
Despite how boring my economics class was that morning, an hour with Scates was enough to liven up my day.
My first taste of the real world of journalism came my junior year, when I covered football and basketball for the first time. The players had a lot of media requests and little time to speak to writers at the “lowly” Daily Bruin.
But I embraced the challenge of working with these high-profile athletes and competing with large national newspapers for the same stories.
Covering the teams had its perks: traveling on road trips, whether it was to the barren Washington in Pullman, or the beer lawn parties of Arizona football games in Tucson.
It was awesome to stand on the sidelines for the last-minute comebacks football pulled off during my junior year. One of the coaches even pulled me up in the air after the victory against Washington State.
It was at The Bruin where I made most of my good friends and two of my current roommates.
On those trips to the Final Four and to Arizona State and Stanford is where I spent my roommate’s 21st birthday and my own 21st birthday and many other great nights in college town after college town.
I have spent time talking to NBA draftees at Madison Square Garden and covered two Final Fours. I have been to the cathedral of college football at Notre Dame, the Miracle Mile in Chicago, and spent a week on the beach in Maui covering the basketball team.
I can’t say that my grades didn’t suffer when I missed class to attend weekly basketball press conferences, but these real-life experiences are something that can’t be replaced.
The Daily Bruin has defined my college career. It was in the office where I became a leader, a coworker and, most of all, an aggressive journalist always looking for that next story.
I will probably never work in journalism again, but joining the Daily Bruin was the best choice in my undergraduate career.
Parikh was a 2005-2006 assistant Sports editor and a member of the 2006-2007 Sports staff.