Onward to Big Things

By: Kate Norum

Growing up with sports his whole life made it a no-brainier for Matt Castle to choose a career in sports. Matt is a Boston guy through and through. Hockey and soccer were the sport he played from a young age. Having a strong support system from his family has been helpful especially since he didn’t even know how to begin the process of working in sports. Originally he had a plan to attend Boston University but that changed to go to Penn State. This might seem like nothing but this was one of the first steps Matt took to fulfill his goal of working in sports media and branching out of Boston. Matt was in a sports writing class he took his first semester at Penn State, it made him excited about the whole dynamic that goes into this field of work. It was from that moment on he knew working in sports was his path. Throughout his college career he wrote for various websites, one of them being OnwardState, a Penn State student run blog website, where Castle would write in sports, mainly under the hockey beat.

Currently, Castle is writing for BruinsDaily, a Boston Bruins online publication that centers around the hockey team and is also a production assistant at NBC Sports Boston.

What sports moment will you never forget from Penn State?

When I was with Sara Civian (Castle’s mentor and editor of OnwardState) covering the hockey Big Ten Championship at Joe Lewis Arena in Detroit, sitting in an old press box, where Penn State ending up winning in double overtime. Immediately finishing writing our stories we both ran down onto the ice to put it on social media for the team. Coach Guy Gadowsky was getting Gatorade showered on five feet from me. I was like this is so cool. 

What’s your favorite part of being in sports? 

I would say being behind the scenes was my favorite thing of all time for sports. Like going into the bowels of TD Garden, through the media entrance, walking by the locker rooms, and by the action is awesome. 

What game will you forever remember covering?

Game 7 of The Stanley Cup (2019). The Bruins lost it. It was such a beautiful day, the city was so alive and it will probably never be like that again. Then they (Bruins) make the biggest goose-egg ever. I was in the locker room afterwards and there was so many tears. It was crazy. They held us outside the locker room longer than normal , usually it’s 10 minutes after the game, they get you in and out. This time they held us probably 30 to 45 minutes outside the locker room and I know they’re devastated. The first thing I see is one of the players completely in tears. I saw Zdeno Chara cry and that was surreal to me because he was one of my idols growing up.

What is the best advice you’ve been given?

I have two pieces of advice. The first, is to network. Network with any person and any one. Another comes from John Affleck, a former sports writing professor of mine.  Affleck said to me “get there early and stay late” because there’s so much stuff that happens behind the scenes, you never know what you could see if you just get to a facility a little earlier than most people and stay later. 

Who are some of the people that have kept you motivated throughout everything and why?

One person who definitely comes to mind is Sara Civian, she helped me become a better writer from OnwardState. She was instrumental from my time at Penn State and actually recommended me to write at BruinsDaily. She taught me a lot about writing and how to get started in the business. She knew I had the passion for it. She’s absolutely crushing it in Carolina, which is something I strive to do. Another person happens to be a former professor of mine at Penn State, Mike Poorman, who taught sports industry and sports writing. He recognized that I was good at sports writing. I remember it was my sophomore year and he brought in a guy from ESPN and afterwards I said I wanted to be like him. He (Poorman) made me a checklist on the steps to take to get there, starting with joining a news outlet at Penn State to get a ton of exposure. 

Thank you to Matt for sharing his story as he continues to reach his own personal goals in the sports field with no stopping in sight. 

You can follow Matt on Twitter: @Matt_Castle22 or connect with him on LinkedIn