Keith Hawkins
Now: Tennis editor | ESPN.com
Then: Sports reporter| The Oklahoma Daily

Most sports writers and editors would go ga-ga to have his e-mail address end in @espn.com. ESPN.com Tennis Editor Keith Hawkins said, for him, breaking into the industry was all about timing … and experience.

From 1993 to 1995, Hawkins worked on The Daily sports desk while an OU journalism graduate student. It was in the student newsroom that he found his first taste of professionalism.

“When I was there, everyone liked to have fun, but everyone was so serious in terms of their job at The Daily,” Hawkins said. “That was the first time I’d been in a newsroom and seen people that serious about their work.”

Hawkins went from OU’s sports desk to sports editor at the Gunnison County Times in Colorado and then sports information director at Western State College of Colorado.

Hawkins was attending a sports conference in 2000 when someone from ESPN approached him.

“The one thing I have noticed is a lot of it has to do with timing,” Hawkins said.

Hawkins’ timing led him to the research department of the ESPN network in 2000. Looking to do something different within the company, he applied to be tennis editor for the Web site in 2005.

He said good internships and experience can help students achieve these positions right out of college.

“I think schools like Oklahoma allow their students to get good summer internships at prestigious papers,” Hawkins said. “Internships are invaluable.”

A good internship can even land students jobs with prominent online media. When Hawkins worked at The Daily, Web sites were a novelty. He said the immediacy of information has made coverage a lot faster.

“Nowadays, breaking news happens all the time,” Hawkins said.

He said even stories that aren’t necessarily breaking news get covered as such, because the information is available. In sports reporting, the Internet is second only to play-by-play radio coverage, and it’s catching up.

Even this .com sports guru had to build a foundation somewhere. Hawkins said he thinks often of the first bricks he laid at OU.