Graham Jones
My Stories
Jeanette Langston: Enter the Ring, Think Out of the Box
From Stewart to Clark: The History of Women’s Sports Cards
Listen to my KRCL Feature:
Biography
Graham Jones came to the University of Utah in August 2021 with the intent to pursue a career in film. After two and a half years of trials and tribulations in the U's film department, he switched to a journalism major. The choice was inspired by the positive experience he had working at The Daily Utah Chronicle, the university's student-run newspaper, which he joined in March 2023. He began as a producer of the newspaper's news podcast "News for U" and joined the arts desk as a writer soon after. In April 2024, he became the assistant arts editor for the desk and has held that position since. Despite no longer majoring in film, he is still passionate about it, consuming and analyzing as much of it as possible. When Jones is not writing or watching films, he can be found working at the J. Willard Marriott Library or hanging out with friends.
Reporter's Notebook
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: I have no experience or relationship to the world of sports. Not men’s sports, not women’s sports. For the majority of my life, I watched one sports game a year – the Super Bowl. Because of this, I knew being a member of a course solely focused on women’s sports would be a challenge. Over the semester, it proved to be one on multiple occasions. However, I often kept in mind what I learned during my first course with Professor Marcie Young Cancio: If you are assigned a story on a subject that doesn’t interest you, make it.
This is why I jumped on the opportunity to write a story on women’s sports cards, an idea proposed by Matthew D. LaPlante, a journalism professor from Utah State University who has offered additional guidance in this class. I initially planned to write a story on women within the sports card-collecting community, a thread that still exists in the latter part of my story. However, after discovering Cindy Dick and her massive collection of women’s sports cards in my first round of research, I redirected my story to a timeline of women's sports shown through sports cards.
From here, I reached out to a wide variety of sources I thought could help me, many being current sports memorabilia collectors. In fact, I found a website that had seemingly not been updated since 2006 with an endless list of collectors with their emails and home states. I contacted the Utah ones and to my surprise (and joy) many replied within the next day. For the first time in my entire journalism career, I felt on top of things.
I was quickly knocked back down when I realized that my lack of sports knowledge was a detriment to my interviewing skills. I could nod my head and mutter “m-hmm” as many times as I wanted, but eventually, interviewees would figure out I had no idea who they were talking about. So, I spent some time educating myself, trying to learn the biggest names in the history of women’s sports so that I could better connect with my sources.
For the most part, this proved to be a worthwhile venture, as in my following interviews I felt 10 times more engaged with the conversations. This was especially the case when I visited the Crossroads Cards & Memorabilia Show. Where I once would have felt like an alien on a foreign planet, I now walked with pride. I could run with the pack and play by their rules. I no longer looked like a naive student but instead an experienced reporter.
Not every interview was a winner. Some would drift away from the subject to talk about their favorite (often male) players. Others would be supportive of women’s sports in the most misogynistic way possible (“they’re nice to look at”). However, the gems shined bright, like my conversations with Cindy Dick and Jordan Hulet. Talking and connecting with those folks, I saw my path and future.