By Jeff Weisinger, Founding Editor | 

Abraham Lincoln once said “If you want your name to be remembered after your death either do something worth writing or write something worth reading.”

Maybe this is my attempt to be remembered at The City College of New York, and maybe this is my way of making an impact on the sports media scene at CCNY like my predecessors before me at The Campus Magazine have.

I’ve always been interested in people’s views and their stories.  As a sports journalist, I’ve talked to numerous athletes, coaches and even staff and family members to get stories, then I write about my findings.  While that’s completely fine, I feel as if I could do a lot better than just that.  I want to bring out the stories that I probably wouldn’t be able to tell – the stories that only those in the locker rooms, at practice, and even off of campus could tell, at the same time using the same journalistic values I’ve learned over my time with various media companies to tell the stories one game at a time.

Allow me to introduce myself — my name is Jeff Weisinger.  I’m the sports editor and lead sportswriter at CCNY’s The Campus Magazine.  After creating the hashtag “#BeaverBeat” when I covered sports events, I decided to take that step to the next level and bring to City College something that it hasn’t seen before.  Heck, what we’re trying to do here is probably something even CUNY hasn’t seen before.

BeaverBeat is the newest sports site dedicated to The City College of New York, covering everything CCNY Athletics.  You’ll see game previews and recaps, feature stories, even video and photo blogs.

Our special project titled “Inside The Dam” takes us inside the minds of the players and coaches themselves and brings the stories that not even I could probably get, unfiltered, uncontrolled.  (Yes, they can even go off about that one sports reporter they really, really don’t like.)

This site will be a learning experience for myself, my staff and CCNY.  We’ll make mistakes and we’ll probably see how we could’ve done some things differently for the better.  However, day by day, story by story, we’ll grow together.

I couldn’t have done this without the help of many, many people outside of my family. (This is the thank you part of my column, so if you’re not interested, click the back button now.  It’s okay, I completely understand.)

First off, I couldn’t have had this ambition without my old crew back with Ohlone Network Sports and the Ohlone Monitor Newspaper back in Fremont, California.  We did things with sports media that no junior college had any business doing, and paved the way for sports journalism to become a legitimate course and potential career for those interested and dedicated.  The programs have helped a lot of people begin their path in the field and I couldn’t be any more proud to have been a part of the beginning of that.

Then there’s my old advisors, Bill Parks and Paul Hammons.  They both saw the potential in me to be creative and to be ambitious and helped me fuel that without restraint.  They gave me the guidance and tools I needed to do something special in this field.

To my play-by-play on-camera crew at ONS Sean Reddy and Randy Estrada, who have supported me and this particular project from across the country and who would probably lose their mind if I left the sports media field… thank you.

Then there’s my new Campus Magazine family here at City.  This site really happened because I’ve flooded The Campus website with nothing but sports stories and they told me to put it somewhere else.

Okay, slightly just kidding.  But they’ve been incredibly supportive and have allowed me to “do my thing” to the fullest and have never held me back.  To my advisor Professor Linda Villarosa and my editor-in-chief Louis Oprisa, your belief in my ability to bring back sports media to City makes me put in a lot of the extra hours (days, weeks, months, lifetimes)that I already do, which has sparked in this site.

And last, but most certainly not least, the CCNY Athletic Department.  Thank you for granting me the access I’ve needed to do my job to the best of my ability.  To the CCNY scholar-athletes and coaches, none of this would have happened if it weren’t for y’all.  I thank you for giving me the time to interview you, do feature stories and also shoot pictures and videos of games and interviews.  The time you have given me has not gone once without any sense of gratitude.

Okay, enough of the sappy stuff, let’s get this thing started.