Since I began my journey as a broadcast journalism major at Elon University in 2015, I have made it my goal to accumulate as much experience as possible on both the broadcast and print sides of journalism. Here you will see a collection of written work that I have done over the past few years. While this is not a conclusive list, I believe it to be some of my best work, and I truly enjoyed writing each piece. Enjoy!
The Leesburg Lightning (Summer 2018)
This past summer I was lucky enough to be the journalism intern for the Leesburg Lightning of the Florida Collegiate Summer League. Among other responsibilities, I wrote recaps of every game we played (about 50 for the whole summer), put together weekly recaps for our team and league websites, and interviewed players and coaches following each game, incorporating their quotes into my recaps. All of my recaps were also published in the local Lake County newspaper, The Daily Commercial. My writing for the Lightning was good enough to win me Journalism Intern of the Year for the entire FCSL.
Sports Traditions blog (Fall 2018)
https://sportstraditions.wordpress.com/
For my senior Sports Information class in the Fall of 2018, we were required to keep a sports-related blog for the first part of the class. My blog was based on exploring the most exciting traditions in all of sports, how they came to be, and what makes them so special.
Profile on Smitty’s Ice Cream Owner Amy Nakhle
https://www.elonnewsnetwork.com/article/2017/05/everyones-favorite-sweet-spot
This is a contributor piece that I wrote for Elon’s student newspaper, The Pendulum, on the owner of our local ice cream shop, Smitty’s. Amy’s story is a truly unique one, and I was so glad to see this make the paper in May 2017.
Classwork collection blog (February-December 2017)
https://mholzapfelblog.wordpress.com
This is a collection of writing and multimedia works from several classes that I have taken at Elon. For my Reporting for the Public Good class in the Spring of 2017, we had to find newsworthy topics around campus and publish new articles to our websites at least twice per week. My personality profile on Smitty’s Ice Cream co-founder Amy Nakhle, which was published in Elon’s student newspaper The Pendulum, is among the pieces included on this website.
Articles for College Students, by College Students and TSJ Sports (Summer 2017)
https://mattholzapfelblog.wordpress.com/
In the summer of 2017, I spent my summer as a Communications Intern at The AroundCampus Group. While the internship as a whole was not as fulfilling as I’d hoped, I was able to write a number of articles for the company website throughout the summer, which I have put together on this blog. On another note, I also did freelance NBA writing for thasportsjunkies101.com from May 2017 until November 2017. I wrote two NBA articles per week for the website, and I consider that gig to be one of the most beneficial for my knowledge of AP Style and SEO writing guidelines. Unfortunately, the company has since changed domains and websites, and I no longer have access to those articles.
