 "Photo: Tyler McDermott")
Since graduating from the University of New Hampshire in 1982, nationally renowned sports writer Jackie MacMullan has written for The Boston Globe, appeared numerous times on ESPN’s “Around the Horn”, written for Sports Illustrated the magazine as an NBA analyst, and contributed to espn.com as an NBA columnist and reporter.
She has covered historic sporting events such as the 1984 NBA Finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Boston Celtics, and the 1986 World Series when Bill Buckner allowed the winning ground ball to pass through his legs. She has written numerous books featuring former professional athletes as co-authors about history and the greatest rivalries of all-time.
And on Friday night, she was here.
The former Globe sports writer was at the Paul Sweet Oval in the Field House for a book signing, featuring her latest book, “When the Game was Ours”. The book also featured two of the greatest basketball players of all-time as co-authors: Larry Bird and Earvin “Magic” Johnson. She also returned to watch the season-opener for the women’s basketball team, in which they took on St. Joseph’s University.
MacMullan, who played on the UNH basketball team and was part of the editorial staff for The New Hampshire during her tenure at the university, said some of her fondest memories involved working for the newspaper.
“Are you kidding?” MacMullan said. “When people ask me ‘what do you remember most about UNH,’ it really isn’t the basketball team, it’s working at The New Hampshire and how much I learned from that, and being up all night and deadlines.”
MacMullan said she started out as a news editor when she first joined, but later became the sports editor after her first year of working on the staff. She said it took a lot of courage and persuading for her to start working for the staff, as she was a little intimidated.
“It took me forever to make that walk down to the MUB and to have enough courage to walk in there,” MacMullan said. “My teacher kept saying ‘you really need to go in there, you have to do it,’ but I was just scared to death to do it because I just didn’t think I was good enough. It seemed like when I read they all knew so much and I didn’t really feel like I knew much at all.”
She also said that it was probably the most meaningful thing that she did while at UNH.
MacMullan attributed a lot of her success to her former journalism professor, Andy Merton. She said he was a big influence when it came to finding an internship. He helped her start her first internship at The Gloucester Daily Times, as well as a second internship with The Boston Globe after she deferred her graduation.
Merton said that MacMullan was the ultimate student, and that she worked as hard as anyone to get to where she is now.
“She was the ideal student,” Merton said. “She was the kind of student that makes a teacher look good. She did all the work very eagerly, and she had a great deal of initiative; she found stories on her own.”
Merton said he thinks she knew what she wanted all along. He also added that she was the journalism department’s visiting journalist in 2006, for which she spoke to journalism classes and gave a public talk about her career and how she got to that point.
“She makes the program look good,” he said.
During her senior year, MacMullan had an opportunity to become TNH’s editor-in-chief, but turned it down because it would have meant quitting the basketball team. She said it was one of the hardest decisions she ever had to make, but ultimately she chose to continue playing basketball. She said that she doesn’t regret her decision, though part of her wishes she could have been in charge of the paper.
The Boston Globe hired MacMullan after she graduated from UNH in 1982. She spent three decades writing for them, first on the news staff before switching over to cover sports for the majority of her tenure.
MacMullan now spends her time as a freelance journalist, unattached to any specific publication so she can spend more time with her family.
Be the first to comment on this article!