Introducing Breakaway’s new Senior Writer for women’s college sports

Mitchell Northam (center, with the Star Wars mask) sits in front of the Cameron Crazies at a Duke womens basketball game in 2021.

| Submitted Image Mitchell Northam joins SB Nation to cover womens college sports at Breakaway.

Hes an AP Top 25 voter, and has covered womens college basketball for USA Today, the Baltimore Banner and elsewhere.

It wasnt that long ago, so I can still vividly recall covering my first national championship game in 2019 in Tampa.

I remember trying to sweep away the confetti off my keyboard as I tried to file a story on deadline from my courtside seat.

I remember the disappointment on the faces of the Notre Dame players.

I remember watching DiDi Richards jump into NaLyssa Smiths arms and the excitement and pure joy coming from the Baylor bench.

I remember wondering about the two teams that lost in the semifinals Oregon and UConn and questioning whether the Huskies reign was over, and whether Sabrina Ionescu could get back here the next season (a question we never got the answer to, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic).

More than anything else, I remember being hooked on womens college basketball.I keep a corkboard in my home office thats covered in media credentials from the past decade that Ive spent as a professional journalist.

Theres one from a visit to NASAs Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Virginia, two from awesome Army-Navy games, a few from wild NASCAR races, one from a fun Division III lacrosse championship, another from a memorable U.S.

Open in Pinehurst, and countless pieces of paper and plastic from college basketball games.Hanging off one thumbtack on the board, I have a blue ACC lanyard that holds the credentials from the four womens college basketball Final Fours that Ive covered.

The constant on those passes is my name, but everything else is different, from the logo for the championship to the color scheme, and to the outlet I covered the games for.

Each of those four credentials has a different news organization printed on it.

I suppose theyre that way because I thought it was important for me to be at each one of those, to see the games, to capture the moments, to tell the stories and to do some boots-on-the-ground reporting.

So, the name of the news organization on each of those credentials represented whoever was paying me the most that year, but I was often doing work for multiple publications at those tournaments.Last year, I produced 64 pieces of content for nine different news organizations during March Madness.

The year before, 60 for 10 different outlets.

During the 2021-22 season, 98 pieces of content for 12 different news organizations all on womens college basketball.Again, like I said, I was hooked.Im not pointing that workload to toot my own horn.

I note it because theres a bunch of other writers and reporters like me doing the same sort of work in this space piecing together every little job they can grab to make something of a career out of covering womens sports.

We dont do it because we love the extra paperwork and calculating our mileage when tax season comes around, or because we like badgering editors with invoices, or because we like staying in shady Airbnbs because we cant afford the media hotels.We do it, and keep doing it, because we love the sports and we love the work.Ask most folks who have tried to make covering womens sports a full-time living and theyll all probably tell you the same thing: its really hard.

This space is not a stepping-stone.

You have to love it.

You have to be addicted to storytelling.

You have to be obsessed with the games.

You have to know your subjects and audiences deeply.

You do it not for the money, but because you cant wait to tell readers and fans what you just saw.

You want to describe it to them over and over again.

You want to give these athletes, these coaches, these teams and their stories who have been overlooked for far too long the attention and spotlight they deserve; above the fold in the newspaper, the lead story on the nightly news, pinned to the top of a websites homepage, and among the first things the almighty algorithm spits at us on Instagram.I like to believe that all of those things apply to me that I do love this, that Ive fought for fair coverage, and that Ive grinded to tell these stories and worked hard to try to make a living doing it.

But then the imposter syndrome creeps in and I get a bit uncomfortable touting my resume or patting myself on the back.

Im just a reporter, a writer, and because this is 2025 a content creator.

So, Ill just let my work speak for itself.

Mitchell Northam covering the womens ACC Tournament in Greensboro, N.C.

in 2023.

My name is Mitchell Northam and Ive been covering womens sports since 2018 when Howard Megdal gave me the opportunity to cover the WNBAs Atlanta Dream.

By the next spring, I was covering my first Final Four for NCAA.com and preparing to spend a season covering the NWSLs North Carolina Courage for the Orlando Sentinel.

Since then, Ive become an AP Top 25 voter, a member of the USBWA board for womens basketball, and Ive told a bunch of stories for a bunch of different news organizations about womens sports, including USA Todays For The Win, the Baltimore Banner, the Associated Press, the Raleigh News and Observer, the Miami Herald, The Next and North Carolina Public Radio.And thats what I aim to keep doing here at SB Nation, where Ill be a Senior Writer covering womens college sports for Breakaway.

Ill tell stories about triumphs and heartbreaks, about failures and comebacks, about record-setters and barrier-breakers, about sweet wins and unbearable defeats, about changemakers and trendsetters, about iconic stars and under-the-radar contributors, about big-time players and fun moments, about inspiration and tragedy, about fans, the impact of money, and changes to the sport.

And Ill do that through not just the written word, but with videos, photos and audio as well.

Some of these stories will be focused in the world of womens college basketball, but others will be set in softball, volleyball, lacrosse, soccer, field hockey and gymnastics.

Others will be in emerging sports like wrestling and flag football, which I cant wait to dive into.

Ive made womens college basketball specifically the ACC a bit of my niche over the past few years, but Im excited to broaden my lens and cover this sport and others on a national level.These are the types of stories Ive been trying to tell in womens sports for the past few years.

The difference now is that these will all be in one place, under the banner of Breakaway a team Im incredibly eager to join.Im also very grateful to have this opportunity.

Coming up with the exact number is difficult, but its safe to say there arent many writers and reporters who cover womens sports full-time on a national level.

Whatever the figure is, its miniature compared to the number of folks who cover mens sports as their lone job.

After years of piecing together freelance gigs to pay my own way to the past three Final Fours and other road trips for games around the country, Im thankful that Ill have a singular platform to tell these stories, and to have the backing of a news organization that is investing in coverage of womens sports.Soon, Ill get the opportunity to add a fifth to that collection of Final Four credentials.

And again, my name will be the same, but everything else will change.

This time, Ill look down and see SB Nation hanging from my neck in Tampa in April.Its a bit of a full-circle moment for me.

One of the first places I ever wrote for, way back in 2013 when I was still a student at a school youve never heard of Wor-Wic Community College Black & Red United brought me aboard to blog about D.C.

United.

Eventually, Id write for six different team sites at SB Nation, getting invaluable reps and learning from some great people along the way.Some 12 years later, Im back at SB Nation with a new title and at a different stage of life, but my goal is still the same.

At Breakaway, Im going to try to tell stories about athletes, coaches and the people in womens sports as they continue to break through.Put more simply, Im here to make interesting and good stuff.

See yall on the internet..

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