Alexandra Hunnings
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“You have big legs!” The old man yells, lumbering towards the javelin runway where I’m standing. Dressed in a ripped t-shirt and shorts made from cut-off sweatpants, he begins shaking his index finger at my legs. Now inches from my face, in a thick eastern European accent he yells again, “you could make a great hammer thrower!”
I was fifteen years old and had just finished competing at one of my first track meets.
My father, ever the optimist, encouraged me to give hammer throwing a try. The old man, who later revealed himself as a generous and intriguing character, became my first track & field coach.
Four months later, I was one of the best hammer throwers in Canada for my age group.
My success in Track & Field by the age of seventeen led to the offer of an athletic scholarship from the University of California, Berkeley.
I spent the next four years competing for the California Golden Bears Women’s Track & Field team. Away from athletics, I felt privileged to be learning from wonderful professors who gave history a face in the present. In May 2007, I graduated with a BA in 20th-century world history.
A month later, I moved home to Vancouver, B.C. A stint interning at Shaw TV and volunteering with a legal aid society confirmed my earlier intuitions and I applied to Ryerson’s Masters of Journalism program.
This past Winter break, I interned as a chase producer at CTV British Columbia. In Vancouver, I experienced my first real taste of breaking news including when the Excalibur gondola snapped at Whistler and lost snowboarder James Martin was found alive days after going missing on a local mountain.
I’m excited to begin a four month reporting practicum with CTV Calgary/Lethbridge in Lethbridge, Alberta.