By Dan Caterinicchia
Serving as the Lantern adviser from 2010-14 provided far more memorable and meaningful personal and professional experiences than I can properly convey. Having a front-row seat to history and seeing my students flourish, in some very trying environments, was sometimes harrowing but often joyful. Their reactions to publishing a first piece, a first front-page story, their first newscast on Lantern TV, their first tough interview with senior leaders, and sometimes their first time being the subject of an interview on “The Worldwide Leader in Sports (remember “Ray Small Tells All”) solidified my decision to leave a promising journalism career to help others start their own.
While those “firsts” were certainly highlights, it is the little things that I cherish even more: editorial meetings that featured passionate debates on coverage plans and placements; the giddiness that comes with working well past midnight, at least once having to relocate to the library when the power failed in the Journalism Building, just to get the print edition over to the printer in time; the emails, phone calls, texts and G-chats in the immediate aftermath of breaking news and national championships.
But the best things, the absolute best, that came from my time working with the Lantern team has been watching, mostly from afar, as they continue to excel at places like The Wall Street Journal, the Athletic, Axios, and my last stop in journalism, The Associated Press. They are writing, shooting, marketing and promoting stories that matter and serve their audiences. Outside of journalism, they are teachers, lawyers, coaches, entrepreneurs and so much more. They have maintained friendships that often started in the Lantern newsroom, some of which have blossomed into marriages!
A final memory is deeply personal. After our younger son was born in the fall of 2010, I would walk over from the medical center, dead tired but full of gratitude, still wearing my hospital bracelet and teach my classes or sit in on newsroom meetings, and then head back to my wife and newborn son whose older brother was just 13 months older! I was not a coffee drinker until that point in life and my students knew it. So as the quarter was wrapping up (semesters came later), I came into my windowless office in the newsroom to find industrial size packages of instant coffee, creamer and sugar, courtesy of the students and Lantern staff. I smile every time I see those gargantuan packages in the supermarket or in an office.
I am smiling now as I write this, thankful for the people that have made, and continue to make The Lantern an enduring source of news, a force for good and a place where lifelong friendships begin.
Editor’s Note: Dan Caterinicchia is currently Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for the University of South Florida. Previously, he was Assistant Vice President for Strategy and Administration in OSU’s Office of Advancement and Chief Communications Officer; a Special Advisor to the Director of the Office of Management and Budget for the State of Ohio; and a Business Writer and Editor for The Associated Press.
