2. Hello,
In this portfolio you will find articles of my written pieces from previous work
experience. The articles cover a variety of sports and different aspects of athletics. More written
work available upon request.
Thanks for your time.
Sincerely,
Aubrie Odegaard
3. 1) Written and published in the Concordia College campus newspaper, The Concordian, on
December 8th, 2016. Feature on Concordia women’s basketball player. Headline
—‘Basketball is a family affair for the Wolhowes.’
For as long as she can remember, she’s been spending Saturday’s cooped up in a gym
with her father, brother, sisters and sometimes even her grandfather working up a sweat. Putting
up extra shots and working on the game she loves—basketball.
For sophomore women’s basketball player Grace Wolhowe the game is all she has
known. Her grandfather and dad played collegiately at Concordia. Her older brother played
collegiately at Bethel. Her sisters played in high school and are still currently playing. So when
senior year of high school came rolling around, she didn’t blink twice about playing at the
collegiate level.
“Yeah, 100 percent I knew I wanted to play,” Grace said. “Cause after college it’s kind of
like girls you don’t see them going and playing pickup ball, but guys do all the time. Even if they
are old.”
With her father and grandfather alumni from Concordia and her older sister, Brooke
Wolhowe a current student at Concordia, following in her families footsteps seemed right. While
Grace was looking into school’s to attend, the MIAC was the only conference she looked into. In
fact, she only applied to three schools: Concordia, Saint Benedict’s and Bethel. Unlike a good
majority of her family, she choose St. Ben’s.
“One of my thoughts was well I want to be different than my brother and sister. That kind
of was one of the factors,” Grace said.
According to Brooke, the kids didn’t feel pressured into picking a MIAC school because
of their parents. They made the decisions on their own.
“I had heard good things about Concordia growing up,” Brooke said. “Even though I had
family who are alumni from Concordia, I never felt pressured to attend Concordia. It was my
decision on my own. Granted, my parents and grandpa were ecstatic that I chose their Alma
mater, it was a decision I had made on my own.”
While her parents hadn’t pushed her one way or the other, Grace found guidance through
someone else—head women’s basketball coach at St. Ben’s, Mike Durbin.
“Another factor was I had like a good working relationship with Mike and I went to the
St. Ben’s basketball camp during the summer when I was in middle school,” Grace said. “He was
my AAU coach for one year. I had had one-on-one private sessions with him before. I know him
really well. How do I say no to him because he made me into the player I am today.”
While family members were bummed, they still supported her decision and cheered her
on as she played the game they all love.
“It was solely her decision on where she wanted to go. Concordia was in her top three
choices, but she ultimately ruled it out because ‘everyone from our high school goes to the
Fargo/Moorhead area’ as she wanted to go somewhere different than others in her class,” Brooke
said. “I would mention things about Concordia and how I wanted her to come, but I knew she
had to figure things out for herself. When she decided to go to St. Ben’s, I was bummed, but I
wished her the best and supported her decision.”
4. While Grace was at St. Ben’s for the coach and basketball, she found that it wasn’t
enough early one.
“In like October. I didn’t like the social life and it just wasn’t the right fit for me. I just
wasn’t about that and I didn’t like the two campuses” Grace said. “So I asked my parents, ‘can I
transfer at semester?’And they are like okay well you can’t play basketball. And I was like okay
I’ll hang in there and see how this season goes.”
So, Grace went through the season and still wasn’t fitting with St. Ben’s.
“I mean I was starting as a freshman, I mean, that’s anybody’s dream,” Grace said. “And
the fact that I still was not happy showed that it wasn’t the school for me. And if I were to not be
in basketball at St. Ben’s I would have been miserable. But like here, let’s say I got hurt and
couldn’t play anymore I still really like this school and the people and such.”
When looking to transfer, Concordia was her first choice.
“When I told Rahman I wasn’t coming to Concordia she was like well I hope everything
works out at St. Ben’s, but if it doesn’t know our arms are always open and we would be happy
to have you,” Grace said. “So when I knew I wanted to transfer it was automatically Concordia
because of how she responded to my first decision.”
Not only were open arms a deciding factor for Grace, but conversations with Brooke
helped as well.
“As an older sister, I did the best to just listen and give her advice when necessary. I
definitely vocalized a bit more now that the opportunity for her to come to Concordia had
become more likely and because she was seeking advice on what to do,” Brooke said. “Another
conversation we had was when we would mention all the fun things we could do together. It
would be like the ‘good ol days’ in high school. It had been three years living in two different
locations so I think the excitement of being together again added to her decision of transferring.”
While transferring can be hard, it’s as if Grace had started out at Concordia all along.
“I love it here. The people are genuinely nice and they genuinely care about you. I just
love the family atmosphere,” Grace said. “I feel like I fit in here. I was like really nervous about
that, like okay what if I don’t like Concordia I gotta transfer again! What the heck. But I love it
here.”
Now that Grace has made the transition and continued her love for the game of
basketball, she couldn’t be more pleased with Concordia.
“I’m proud that I had the I don’t know if you want to say the guts, but have the courage
to transfer, because it’s definitely not an easy decision,” Grace said. “It’s not easy, but I’m so
happy I did it.”
5. 2) Written and published in the Concordia College campus newspaper, The Concordian, on
December 13th, 2016. Midseason look at the Concordia women’s volleyball team. Headline
—‘Volleyball team rebuilds with just two seniors.’
School is all about learning new things, but for the volleyball team the learning doesn’t
stop in the classroom. Once they have finished their classes for the day and put away their
textbooks, they step onto the court and continuously learn how to play together.
While every year brings a graduating class, the volleyball squad lost a fair amount of
their team and were left with two to fill the empty shoes and show their seven freshman what
college volleyball is all about.
“It’s kind of teaching them the ropes until they get the hang of things,” said senior Jena
Klaphake. “I feel like there is definitely that time to figure it out. It’s been being patient and
letting everything come together.”
Right now, being half why through the season, the team is still working out some kinks.
“We have the potential to be a very good team and we have shown that at times,” senior
Mandy Mercil said. “It’s just been a lot of highs and lows which comes with being young.”
The graduating class left a hole in the hitting positions for the team this year, leaving the
team to another adjustment beside being a fairly young team. Audience members may have
noticed this change while sitting in the stands. While last year and previous years Mercil and
Klaphake both played a fair amount in the setter position, Mercil now does a little of both,
setting and hitting.
While Mercil has become a little more versed in her position playing ability this year, the
newbies are working with the adjustments as well. By being thrown right into the mix of things.
The adjustments have been an obstacle for the team all around.
“I’m just trying to be very patient, I know what it was like to be in their shoes,” Mercil
said. “They have very big roles on the team. I also started as a freshman and had to jump right
into playing, fortunately I had more veterans on the court to help me, now the veterans are the
minority.”
Where they may be lacking in hitters, they make up in other ways, but even those
sometimes aren’t good enough.
“We’ve hung around every game and fought hard,” Mercil said. “We are really a
egressive servers and that really saved us.”
For Mercil it’s just desire to keep a consistent play.
“We could work on finishing and consistency,” Mercil said. “There has been a lot of
matches where we score 23-plus in points and don’t win.”
As a team, they are working through these struggles.
“As a whole I really think our girls are finding their sports, their roles,” Klaphake said. “I
think before it was just a little bit of uneasy and maybe not playing confidently and now I think
maybe everyone for the most part is a lot more confident in their role and what they have to do
and what they bring to the team.”
While they may be starting to mesh a little better than earlier, the team will put it to the
test in the next couple weeks.
“I think we are definitely in a pretty good place considering where we are at in the
season,” Klaphake said. “We are playing the best, probably that most consistent play we’ve had
6. all season which is good, because this is the time of the season that we really need to step up and
win some big games. It will be a good test for us.”
Although they may be playing the best they have all season, that needs to translate in the
next couple of games as well.
“We have the potential to be a very good team,” Mercil said. “We have a lot of thought
conference games left to determine if we make the playoffs and if we do we could have a pretty
dangerous squad.”
Cobber fans can see the volleyball squad in action Oct. 29 as they take on Saint Benedict.
7. 3) Written and published in the Concordia College campus newspaper, The Concordian, on
December 10th, 2015. Update on the Concordia women’s swimming and diving team.
Headline—‘Swim team has high standards for whole team.’
The waters of the pool are continuing to ripple as the Cobber women’s swimming and
diving team pushes forward through their season. This year is head coach Talia Butery’s second
season where she continues to make the program into a mighty force to be reckoned with.
“I expect our athletes to continue to grow as competitors,” Butery said. “Continue to
build on the success we had in our previous season.”
While going into this season with last year’s success in mind the team has their standards
high for both team and individual performance.
“We really want to get more people in top-16 at conference,” senior captain Jordyn Olson
said. Maybe place a lot of relays higher up. Really just placing higher in MIAC, doing better in
conference and becoming closer as a team.”
For Olson’s team goals to be carried out this season, the individual goals of each member
need to be superb and every member needs to be focused. While looking at those individual
goals, senior Annie Herkenhoff seeks a second chance.
“It has been a couple years since I have been in the pool,’ Herkenhoff said. “So honestly,
I just need to get back into the shape as I was when I was a freshman in college.”
This year is Herkenhoff’s first season swimming as a Cobber. She started her collegiate
swimming career at Saint Cloud State. She transferred to Concordia her junior year where she
left swimming behind and became a member of the Cobber women’s basketball team. Returning
to Concordia for her senior year she wasn’t planning on going out for any sport, until she was
convinced otherwise.
“I didn’t know that I was going to be on the swim team until late August,” Herkenhoff
said. “I ended up talking to a family friend and he convinced me. He told me I have four years to
be a college athlete and if I was good enough to make it, I should, because you know it’s four
years. That’s all you got.”
While Herkenhoff works back into swimmer shape, Olson and junior captain Madeline
Johnson do the same. Although Olson and Johnson did not take a few years off like Herkenhoff
did, they both stepped away from swimming for a short time.
Olson was unable to train in the off-season as much as desired because of an internship.
The job made it harder to get back into the swing of things.
“I knew it was going to be a challenge, so I just have to stay positive,” Olson said. “I just
told myself that I wasn’t going to be at the same level as I was past years and that it was okay.”
For Johnson, training was interrupted because she spent last swim season in Italy
studying abroad.
“I planned on trying to keep up with my swimming in Italy, but little did I know there
was absolutely no pool access,” Johnson said. “I swam as much as I could when I came back, but
four months is a long time to be out of the water.”
While Olson, Herkenhoff and Johnson work to get to their competition shape, the team
continues to reach for their goals through their training.
8. “Our athletes swim anywhere from 5,000-6,000 yards on an average day,” Butery said.
“The yardage and intensity will go up as we get closer to the conference meet; they usually peak
somewhere around 7,500-8,000 yards [8,000 yards is 320 lengths of the pool].”
With training being geared toward the team’s conference goal, the women can’t seem to
get that “W” in any of their meets thus far despite their returning talent and fresh faces, but that
hasn’t kept them from trying.
“Our upperclassmen are doing a fantastic job of leading the team,” Butery said. “The first
year athletes are following up with great swims and a strong work ethic.”
While the leadership is at the top of their game, the new faces aren’t far behind.
“We have an awesome new group of freshman,” Johnson said. “They are definitely
making an incredibly contribution to the team.”
The team’s work ethic is giving the swimmers a little extra boost as they continuously see
improvements from their hard work.
“I think we have seen a lot of improvements, but we don’t have a win yet.” Herkenhoff
said. “We don’t have divers. We are a very small team and don’t fill our events. You need to fill
the events and you need enough swimmers and divers. That is where we fall short.”
Small but mighty, a phrase that can be used to describe this year's batch of Cobber
women swimmers, but they do not let that hold them back. Despite their size they just keep
swimming.
9. 4) Written and published in the Concordia College campus newspaper, The Concordian, on
November 12th, 2015. Midseason look at the Concordia men’s hockey team. Headline
—‘Men’s hockey team sets goal of MIAC championship.’
Campus is covered with an array of auburn and gold leaves as the temperatures continue
to decline. With the end of fall and winter soon approaching, that can only mean one thing: hot
chocolate, scarves, mittens — hockey.
Even though the ground is lacking in the snow department and it may not feel like hockey
weather, the men’s hockey team has started their season and hit the rink.
“To start the season, we had pretty high expectations,” senior Charlie Aus said. “We got
some returners that have been a big part of our team.”
While a number of the team’s returners bring major contributions, they graduated one of
the team’s main leaders, back-to-back MIAC All-Conference recipient Andrew Deters. During
last season, Deters led the team in scoring with 10 goals and 18 assists for a total of 28 points.
Losing that type of offense leaves big roles to fill for returners and newcomers.
“Obviously Deters was a huge loss,” said senior Tucker Corbon. “Not just because of his
on-ice performance, but the way he led the team off the ice. He is an irreplaceable guy.”
“Deters, Deters—Captain America. He was a very large part of our team,” Aus said. “He
has been the pioneer, kind of, in a new direction to the type of players, relationships, and
attitudes we want on our team.”
To be prepared for the loss in offense, the team increased their off-season preparations.
“Coach Howe expected a lot out of us. He gave us a pretty good workout plan,” Aus said.
“And for the leaders, he kind of brought us together and told us to stay in touch with the other
players, keep them accountable.”
The captains weren’t the only ones keeping people accountable. The whole team knew
what they needed to do to be prepared for the upcoming season.
“Everyone pushed each other to work hard all summer,” Corbon added. “Whether it was
running, shooting pucks, lifting or skating. Our goal this summer was to do something every day
to improve.”
While the team is only four games in, they have already had some significant injuries that
may lead to setbacks early on. Corbon is one of those that was recently in the hospital for a
fractured bone in his shoulder.
“I’m expecting to be back after Christmas break,” Corbon said. “But I’m hoping I can
speed up the recovery by doing anything possible to heal quicker.”
Corbon is not the only one suffering from injuries early on. According to Aus, Jordan
Krebsbach, Corbon’s defensive partner, is supposedly out with a concussion along with Corbon’s
younger brother, junior Sam Corbon who is out due to injury as well.
“We are a couple games in and three players down, which is difficult,” Aus said. “I think
we got enough guys that are willing to step in and try and fill some rolls. So it will definitely be a
big test.”
While off-season preparation may have a hand in the 3-1 record that the team currently
holds, the team has had some real contributions from its freshman line.
“We have a really deep group this year,” Corbon said. “The freshman we brought in have
fit into our style have and have really bought in.”
10. “We can already feel their contributions just after the first couple games,” Aus said.
“There was one line [during a game] that was full of freshman and they did really well.”
Although it is early in the season, rumors have been floating around that the men’s
hockey team will be fairly successful this season and according to both Corbon and Aus, their
team’s goals for the season show their intentions.
“We usually set some pretty lofty goals,” Aus said.
“Our ultimate goal is to win a National Championship with a MIAC Championship along
the way,” Corbon said.
According to Aus, these lofty goals are not all that out of reach. Last season the team
went out East and played in the PrimeLink Great Northern ShootOut Tournament where they
beat the number 5 and number 2 teams in the country. Knowing that the team has pulled wins
against those highly ranked teams leaves them believing anything is possible.
With high confidence, comes high responsibility, and to achieve the goals that the team
has set, it won’t be a walk in the park.
“We have quite a bit of confidence in ourselves and feel like anything is possible,” Aus
said. “We have a lot of talent and everybody is really excited which was kind of a problem the
first weekend.”
According to Aus the team went into opening weekend hoping to slide by on their skill
alone, which found them thinking otherwise after their 4-2 loss against St. Olaf, Nov. 1.
“We’ve been trying to get back to that hard work mentality,” Aus said. “You learn from it
like okay yeah we are good, but you obviously still need to come and work hard to get things
accomplished.”
With hard work in mind, the team has a rigorous road ahead of them with the most
pristine goals to keep them motivated.
“The most generic quote you know, ‘hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work
hard,’” Aus said. “I think we are gonna have a different mindset coming into games from now
on.”
11. 5) Written and published in the Concordia College campus newspaper, The Concordian, on
November 5th, 2015. Feature on Concordia Sports Information Director. Headline
—‘Cobber SID: The man behind Concordia’s athletic department.’
COBBS WIN! COBBS WIN! Everyone actively involved in the Cobber athletic
community has seen this phrase on countless occasions on a variety of platforms: Twitter,
Facebook and sometimes even Instagram. Up until that final victory tweet, the Cobber
community is receiving live stats from an online account, Cobber SID.
But who is Cobber SID? Who does the Cobber community have to thank for the constant
updates and insight into Cobber athletics? The answer is Concordia’s Sports Information
Director, James Cella.
If one were to look up sports enthusiast in the dictionary, Cella’s name would be the
definition.
“I loved sports growing up, and I played all sports,” Cella said. “Hockey, baseball,
basketball, football, everything — I just loved all sports.”
Cella not only enjoyed playing the sports, but he also found a desire for another angle.
“I loved being on the other end of sports, with communications, writing, and listening to
games,” Cella said. “That aspect of the game is what I wanted to go into after college.”
Cella did not always plan on being a sports information director. In fact, he graduated
with a degree in English from Saint John’s back in 1985. He did not start working in English
related fields upon graduation. After graduating, Cella was approached by the head Saint John’s
soccer coach at the time who was in need of an assistant coach.
“Something I’ve always wanted to do was coach,” Cella said.
It was an offer he couldn’t refuse.
“I could always get into communications and go back into it, but as a coach you really
can’t,” Cella said. “I didn’t want to be 40 and wish I would have gone into coaching.”
After his time as assistant soccer coach passed, Cella’s love for the another side of the
athletic world took a presence.
He went back to school to obtain a communication and broadcasting degree. Soon after,
he found his way to Concordia, and 24 years later he is still here.
Cella’s coaching days didn’t end with the Johnnies. In fact, his days of sitting on the
sideline picked up immensely once he became a Cobber. One of the main reasons Cella is here is
because the head men’s soccer coach position opened up and from there the list of positions
continued. Going down the list, Cella has been the assistant hockey coach, assistant softball
coach and head women’s soccer coach. At one point he served as an intramural director.
Currently, he holds a different combination of positions: assistant men’s soccer coach and sports
information director.
In both roles, Cella is able to share his enthusiasm with a surrounding audience. With
coaching, his love for the sport is expressed through teaching others how to appreciate and better
understand the game. With sports information, he is able to share his passion through words and
photographs to a wider audience than one could ever have imagined.
Cella is responsible for the media attention of all 22 sports at Concordia. The collection
of items that he works on for the athletic department is a list longer than there is room to fit.
12. Cella manages everything that goes onto the Cobber athletic website: pictures, stories, schedules,
rosters, live statistics and videos.
Each individual sport has its own subpage where people can find everything they need to
know about that specific team. There are season previews, game previews, feature articles,
recaps, boxscores, photographs, graphics and even sometimes video excerpts. Cella provides
media items to the public so that people can be up to date on all the latest that is going on in
Cobber country.
The sports information world has not always consisted of Facebook posts and Instagram
pictures. In fact, according to Cella, the sports information career field has changed immensely
in the last three or four years because of evolving social media platforms.
“It’s been unbelievable,” Cella said. “It’s probably the biggest change of any job at the
college athletic level — sports information. You're going from reporting statistics and doing
programs to being a complete media center.”
Other coaches and faculty involved in athletics notice Cella’s hard work and attention to
detail.
“He is on the cutting edge of all social media — always coming up with new ideas and
helping our program stand out,” said head volleyball coach Tim Mosser. “We are in the sea of
four to five hundred schools at the Division III level and he is doing what helps us stand out.”
While the media evolves and people enter the world of social media, people want instant
updates.
“With social media increasing, so has the demand. Everybody now is on twitter.
Everybody’s on Facebook. Everybody’s on Instagram,” Cella said. “They all want every sport all
the time, so instead of covering the sport that day and going away, people want 24/7 coverage.”
Being a one-man-show, providing constant coverage for 22 sports does bring its trials and
tribulations of having enough time to promote each sport, which in turn, are the hardest part of
the job.
“At this time of the year basketball is starting up,” Cella said. “I wish I could get more
coverage of the teams and they want it because the last couple months they’ve seen everything
that has been posted about every other sport and then all of the sudden they start and they are like
wait a minute where is our stuff.”
“That’s the toughest part,” Cella added. “Not being able to get coverage to every sport all
the time the way I want to.”
The job has its late nights and early mornings for Cella, but his passion for sports keeps
him going.
“Is there an oxymoron word to describe it? Like jumbo shrimp,” Cella said with a laugh.
“Like happily stressful. It’s happily stressful because it is lots of stress but you are doing what
you love.”
Cella said he calculated the days he worked last year, from the beginning of football
season in early August to the end of May when track season wrapped up. There were 282 days in
that period of time. He worked 278 of those 282 days.
“Most of the time it’s like, ‘oh this is great’ come into the office and there is an event
going on,” Cella said. “For me that is great because I don’t think I could be in a cubicle all day.”
13. While he may be simply sharing a love for a variety of sports, coworkers see his work as
a lot more than that.
“He has done such a great job getting our teams recognized,” Mosser said. He has
coached before. He knows what it’s like to be a coach and he can really relate and understands
the ups and downs and the trials.”
“My hat is off to [Cella],” Mosser continued. “He is just an awesome guy.”
