This column is a part of a series of alums reflecting on their time at The Eagle in celebration of our 100th anniversary. If you would like to submit a column, visit this page. The Eagle is also fundraising to support its future. If you’d like to give a donation to support The Eagle, please consider doing so here.
They say you find your people in college. I found my people at American University. Specifically, I found my people at The Eagle.
I arrived on campus in 1984 with a deep passion for journalism and an insatiable hunger to report and write. Classes and GPAs were mandatory, but my priority, for all intents and purposes, was to join the student newspaper and get to work. I saw it as a stepping-stone to a career I had dreamed about since at 10 or so.
The Eagle offered practical experience: Across four years, I was a reporter, sports editor, photographer and senior writer. More so, it provided an environment to learn, to listen, to connect and to bond. I drew from alums in the professional world, from older colleagues and from story subjects in our community. Specifically, writing about sports led to eye-opening opportunities on the Washington sports scene, starting with soccer, which would become my expertise during a career at The Washington Post that this summer will reach 40 years.
There were assignments for The Eagle across town and in the Carolinas, pinnacling in December 1985 at the NCAA soccer championship at the Seattle Kingdome. The Eagle was well-represented: We made t-shirts announcing our allegiance! (AU’s eight-overtime loss to UCLA remains the longest match in NCAA history — a record that will stand for eternity because of subsequent rules changes preventing unlimited time.)
Memories and experiences came close to home, too: late nights assembling the paper at the printer in Silver Spring, later nights at the Goalpost bar at Tenleytown — followed by very early mornings at the sticky counter of Steak N Egg up Wisconsin Avenue and waiting to see the final product delivered to campus.
I've traveled the world covering soccer — from Havana to Johannesburg and Moscow to Melbourne — but what stays with me are the friendships formed and nurtured over four years on the second floor of Mary Graydon Center. To this day, when I am asked how I got my start covering soccer for The Post, I fondly recount my experiences at The Eagle.
Steven Goff SOC/B.A. ‘88 was a sports editor for The Eagle.
