In middle school, I was an offensive lineman for the football team.
It's a pretty unremarkable brag for most people. But those who know me typically laugh when I tell the story.
Why would they laugh? It could be that I'm a peaceful person. Not an ounce of physical aggression runs through my veins.
Or it could be that only 150 pounds rest on my 6-2 frame. I was dwarfed by my competitors and the others on my team. Some of them weighed almost twice what I did.
I learned, years later, that my dad never thought I would finish the season. He figured I'd quit. To see me finish, he said, was one of his proudest moments. He said my determination was an inspiration.
I've always held that close to my heart. I thought about it with every step while training for a 5K race this summer. And it worked. I accomplished the goal I had set out to do at the beginning of the particularly hot season.
I have a new goal for this semester - to create content you want to read.
Notice that I didn't say "newspaper."
No. Our focus this year is on content. I use the vague term on purpose because we are no longer just a newspaper. We have had a website for years, and it has been successful. But our focus is no longer primarily our print product. As many papers around the nation have done, we are becoming an "online-first" organization.
That means you can find our outstanding stories, graphics, photos and other content online, sometimes before you read them in print. As a story happens, you'll see it on bsudailynews.com. And you'll find more than what's in the paper. Our online content will supplement our print product. An evolving partnership with other student media outlets will enable us to do this, and I'm confident we will succeed.
We're also expanding our social media presence. We've organized our Twitter accounts to accurately send out the information for each of our sections. Follow @bsudailynews, @dn_features, @dn_sports, @dn_visuals and @dn_campus for the latest news from each beat. A new account, @dn_editor, will give you a behind-the-scenes look at the DN.
Remember to "like" us on Facebook to see our content mixed in with the engagement and baby announcements, if your news feed is anything like mine lately.
We're also on Instagram. Follow our account: bsudailynews.
In another effort to make this your paper, we want to know if you see any mistakes. If you do, email us at oops@bsudailynews.com or tweet with the hashtag #DNoops. We'll track these each month, and the submissions will be put into a drawing for some Daily News swag. The more you help us fix, the better chance you have of winning.
One thing we'd love for you to point out in this new feature is any bias you perceive. We're going to do our best to be as transparent as the glass in AJ 278, but we'd love for you to catch what we don't.
And keep in mind that our Forum page is separate from our newsgathering efforts. Just because one of our columnists or our editorial board voices an opinion on a story does not mean it changes the way we reported the subject.
I am determined to enact these changes, and many others, over the next 15 weeks. After that, someone else takes the helm. I'm certain they'll do a great job.
But for now, help me achieve another goal. I'm determined, but that might not be enough. Help me make this not just our DN. Help me - help us - make this your Daily News.
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