Meet the Flor-Ala’s new Sports Editor

Mary-Stella Mangina, Sports Editor

My name is Mary-Stella, and I’m stoked to be serving as a section editor for the Flor-Ala this semester. I’m not
necessarily an athlete, but I have a tremendous amount of reverence for those of you at the University of North Alabama who are athletically-inclined.

This coming semester will only be my second on campus, so I feel partially as though I’m still getting acclimated to the college experience. However, I don’t believe my status as a relative newcomer will hinder me from producing quality content. I’m aware of the weight I’ll carry as the first woman to edit the sports section of the university’s publication. Bearing in mind a weight such as this, I’m looking to simultaneously honor the celebration of organized physical fitness and the fiery feminine forces behind it.

Optimally, my writing will be fresh but familiar to the Florence community members who are readers of the Flor-Ala and fans of competitive sports. Honestly, I can say I’m looking forward to getting to know our school’s top-performing athletes and the coaches who supply them with a drive to succeed.

I’ve liked reading and writing since I was very young, and though I’m not the most avid journal keeper, I like to use it as a medium through which I can be introspective and evaluate myself.

Critical thinking via writing is incredibly restorative and relaxing for me. It makes me feel as though I’m allowing my hands to take dictation for my brain’s dialogue.

Here at UNA, I’m majoring in both Business Administration and Commercial French. This year marks my fifth one
studying the French language. Employing my knowledge of it as a tool, along with my compulsion to fully optimize my use of semantics in the English language, I’ve enhanced my grand appreciation for linguistics.

As a town in the American South, Florence has cultivated a culture that is invariably intertwined with sports. Alabamians go about approbating sporting events with unpairable spirit. More specifically, Florentines as a whole do so as a means of spending time with one another; it’s safe to say that a huge portion of Florence’s inhabitants are either student athletes or recreational sportsteam members. Hopefully, by way of acquainting myself with as many of them as possible, I can examine the ways in which words can be manipulated to spark emotional responses in people from all walks of life.

Recently, I’ve been working to broaden my textual horizons so that they have room for in-depth analyses of others and their stories. I hope my genuine fascination with the psychological aspects of athleticism comes across in the articles I write over the course of this semester.

My top priorities are to expostulate the notion that competition is one dimensional by nature and to espouse the many benefits of adopting an active lifestyle.

When I think about the upcoming spring session on campus, I feel optimistic. Truthfully, I’ve yet to meet an academic peer here whom I dislike. UNA is characterized by a strong sense of community, which is evident in its students’ bright-eyed vehemence and voracious approaches to obtaining their goals. Such interconnectivity is hard to come by in a society that grows more divided by the day, whether that divide be physical, as in the quarantine and isolation procedures brought about by the coronavirus pandemic, or philosophical, as is the case in today’s polarizing political climate.

During the next several months, I’ll be sure to do my best when it comes to generating subject matter that surpasses sheer exposition. My pages will reflect our paper’s high standards of engagingness