Blog Note: The Fairfield Department of Athletics has several staff members that work as graduate assistant’s.  While working nearly full-time in their respective field, they are also full-time graduate students. The GA’s will team up to bring you a look at Athletics from their eyes.

My name is Sarah Minice and I am the Graduate Assistant for Athletic Communications.  I played under Coach Julie Brzezinski on the Softball team for four years before graduating in 2011.  In my final semester, Jack Jones offered me a great opportunity to both continue my education and gain experience in the athletics field which I just could not pass up.

As far as my job responsibilities, I am the primary contact for Field Hockey and the Men’s and Women’s Tennis teams.  In the winter, I help out with both the Men’s and Women’s Basketball teams, so you could say it gets a bit chaotic in our back office when seasons overlap.  There are three months of the year that are jam packed for the Athletic Communications office, November and February/March.

This past November was a new experience for me because while I was finishing up midterms and preparing for finals, I also traveled three out of the four weekends with either Field Hockey or Women’s Basketball.  It was a tough schedule, but completely worth it.  Not only did I visit Universities and states that I have never been to before, but I learned so much about both teams and sports.

Growing up just outside of Seattle (as a diehard Seahawks and Mariners fan), field hockey and basketball weren’t very big sports.  In fact, I didn’t even know what field hockey was before coming to Fairfield.  So although my love of sports was obvious coming into this position, I can’t say I knew everything there was to know about each sport here at Fairfield.

One trip in particular that stood out this past month was with the Women’s

Basketball team to Butler University.  Everyone was so excited to play at Hinkle Fieldhouse and there I was trying to figure out why.  Well I got my answer as soon as we walked in.  There were trophy cases full of memorabilia and history all over the walls.  For those of you who don’t know, the movie Hoosiers was filmed in Hinkle Fieldhouse.  The best part of the whole thing was that Head Coach Joe Frager and Coach Dennis Masi had their “Christmas morning” faces on as soon as we walked into the main gym.

Now that November is over, we focus on our winter sports until February/March rolls around and the chaos begins again.