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

It wasn’t 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 Smith’s 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 women’s college basketball.

I keep a corkboard in my home office that’s covered in media credentials from the past decade that I’ve spent as a professional journalist. There’s one from a visit to NASA’s 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 women’s college basketball Final Fours that I’ve 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 they’re 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 women’s college basketball.

Again, like I said, I was hooked.

I’m not pointing that workload to toot my own horn. I note it because there’s 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 women’s sports. We don’t 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 Airbnb’s because we can’t 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 women’s sports a full-time living and they’ll all probably tell you the same thing: it’s 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 can’t 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 website’s 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 I’ve fought for fair coverage, and that I’ve 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. I’m just a reporter, a writer, and – because this is 2025 – a content creator. So, I’ll just let my work speak for itself.

My name is Mitchell Northam and I’ve been covering women’s sports since 2018 when Howard Megdal gave me the opportunity to cover the WNBA’s Atlanta Dream. By the next spring, I was covering my first Final Four for NCAA.com and preparing to spend a season covering the NWSL’s North Carolina Courage for the Orlando Sentinel. Since then, I’ve become an AP Top 25 voter, a member of the USBWA board for women’s basketball, and I’ve told a bunch of stories for a bunch of different news organizations about women’s sports, including USA Today’s 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 that’s what I aim to keep doing here at SB Nation, where I’ll be a Senior Writer covering women’s college sports for Breakaway. I’ll 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 I’ll 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 women’s 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 can’t wait to dive into. I’ve made women’s college basketball – specifically the ACC – a bit of my niche over the past few years, but I’m excited to broaden my lens and cover this sport and others on a national level.

These are the types of stories I’ve been trying to tell in women’s 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 I’m incredibly eager to join.

I’m also very grateful to have this opportunity. Coming up with the exact number is difficult, but it’s safe to say there aren’t many writers and reporters who cover women’s sports full-time on a national level. Whatever the figure is, it’s miniature compared to the number of folks who cover men’s 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, I’m thankful that I’ll have a singular platform to tell these stories, and to have the backing of a news organization that is investing in coverage of women’s sports.

Soon, I’ll 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, I’ll look down and see “SB Nation” hanging from my neck in Tampa in April.

It’s 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 you’ve never heard of – Wor-Wic Community College – Black & Red United brought me aboard to blog about D.C. United. Eventually, I’d 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, I’m back at SB Nation with a new title and at a different stage of life, but my goal is still the same. At Breakaway, I’m going to try to tell stories about athletes, coaches and the people in women’s sports as they continue to break through.

Put more simply, I’m here to make interesting and good stuff. See y’all on the internet.