Each Sunday,
Ryne Nelson brings you a fresh look at the world of basketball. He
covers all the angles, from the NBA to NCAA, MTV to ABC, Frank Sinatra
to Jay-Z, and back again.
Ryne Nelson is
a sophomore broadcast journalism major at the University of Illinois,
where he is a Daily Illini sports columnist and broadcaster for
WPGU 107.1 FM in Champaign. He is an executive member of the Society of
Professional Journalists – UIUC chapter. Ryne is an All-American member
of the University of Illinois’ student cheering section, the Orange
Krush. He interns at the Champaign NBC-affiliate television station and
is a Naperville Community Access Television associate producer. He has
commissioned a 16-team fantasy basketball league for four years running.
When not at the University, he resides in Naperville, Ill., a Chicago
suburb.
Ryne Nelson is
surrounded by family and friends who don’t believe in him as a
journalist. His professors warn he should extremely reconsider going
into the “nearly impossible” market for white, male sportcasters.
Friends chide him for interning at the NBC affiliate television station
and not getting wasted every night. Fellow Chicago suburbanites have
called him derogatory terms because he plays “blackball” and listens to
hip-hop and R&B. His peers dubbed him a scheming traitor because he
refused to change his “unconventional” basketball articles as sports
editor of his high school paper. Strangers say he is ignorant because of
his suburban, genteel upbringing. As he watches the U of I
communications program struggle for life, he hears family and friends
say the University of Illinois will never produce another big-name
journalist.
And to all
those people and to anyone else who ever stereotype or
underestimate him, Ryne Nelson has always had two words: thank you.
