Past @ke_sports managers reflect on the impact of social media

The Knight Errant Sports Twitter has a long and storied history of providing students with the most up to date Red Knight sports news.

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Em Paquette

Junior Henry Witterschein, Knight Errant Sports Editor, live tweets during sporting events throughout the year.

Henry Witterschein, Sports Editor

From Devean George to Grant Besse to four State dance titles, Knight Errant sports has been there to cover them and report the truth.

I started out as a writer for the Knight Errant. As a sophomore, I walked into room 151, not knowing what to expect––since at the time I could hardly write. I looked forward to learning how to be part of publication since I always enjoyed reading Sports Illustrated and ESPN. A couple of days into the semester I got my first sports story, and soon after I fell in love with sports journalism.

Over the semester, I wrote several sports stories and a few other random stories; I enjoyed it so much that when the time came to sign up for classes for this year, I signed up to be part of the editorial board. I hoped to do something involving sports and, a few weeks later, when the roster came out for the 17-18 school year, I discovered that I was a sports editor, manager of the Knight Errant Sports Twitter account, and was in charge of the sports scoreboard on the website.

I joined Twitter right before high school and hardly ever tweeted my own content, so I didn’t know what to expect from myself. Therefore, I started following other sports Twitter accounts like John Millea, who covers high school sports in Minnesota. Also, I carefully watched what Nathanael Ashton-Piper (17’) would tweet because he managed the account along with Tommy McGinn (17’) before me. Ashton-Piper was able to make Twitter informative, entertaining, and funny while also being school appropriate. “I absolutely loved being able to use the Twitter account because I enjoyed making it personal. Twitter (and social media in general) tends to be a bit informal, so when I tweeted, I tried not to sound like a robot-adult tweeting to a bunch of high-schoolers—I just preferred to be me… Essentially, if someone was following the live tweeting of a game, I wanted them to be able to tell it was me tweeting without actually telling them,” Ashton-Piper said.

tried not to sound like a robot-adult tweeting to a bunch of high-schoolers—I just preferred to be me

— Nathanael Ashton-Piper (17')

The @ke_sports Twitter account was started by Matt Muenzberg (12’) in August 2011. Creating a new social media account on one of the biggest platforms in the current era gave Knight Errant more publicity to anyone who would scroll upon our tweets. “I followed reporters covering the Wild, Twins, and just professional sports in general. It was this sort of one-stop shop for everything you wanted to know about a team, and it changed the way I followed live sporting events. As an aspiring reporter, I wanted to emulate that for what I was covering,” Muenzberg said.

For me, the best part of managing the sports Twitter account is getting the opportunity to get out of school for State and Section sporting events, which thankfully happen pretty often. Former sports editor Andrew Birkeland (14’) agrees with me. “One of the best parts of BSM is the success the sports teams have had in the past decade. Not every school gets days off of school for state tournaments with the regularity of BSM and it’s something all students should enjoy when the chance comes,” Birkeland said.

Next year, catch me tweeting for @ke_sports, and follow us to track the progress of your favorite BSM sports teams. And don’t worry, I will be passing the torch to the next generation of sports editors.