In the dynamic world of Arizona athletics, where every victory, setback and score holds significance for the Wildcat community, one name speaks with unmatched passion and knowledge: Mackenzie Hamilton. As the team reporter, Hamilton also proves to be a storyteller, crafting the triumphant and tenacious narratives that are the core of Arizona football. Hamilton is a sports reporter who provides behind-the-scenes insights into players, coaches and games for the Wildcat community.
Hamilton comes from a sports background; her father and grandfather worked in baseball. She always knew she wanted to work in sports, inspired by her family, she enjoyed writing stories since she was a little girl. Hamilton started this journey in middle school, conducting her daily newscast and continued throughout high school. It was in high school that she learned how to anchor and gained many other beneficial skills, securing her the role as the lead sports reporter in her senior year. She later attended the University of Southern Mississippi, playing soccer and studying journalism.
“I went through all the doubts that college kids go through where it’s like, ‘do I really wanna do this?’ Going into journalism is a little scary because it’s an uncertain field but also a passion job,” Hamilton said.
When she was on the soccer team at Southern Mississippi, she had many opportunities to interview her teammates and conduct different segments throughout athletics, which helped build up her confidence to keep moving forward.
In her junior year of college, she joined Laura Okmin of Fox Sports organization, “GALvanize,” which is a group of women wanting to work in sports and learn how to build confidence and skills in the sports field. Hamilton mentioned that Okmin is one of her key mentors to this day and her program has been instrumental in her journey. Hamilton also attended Auburn University for her master of business administration degree and had the opportunity to work alongside their athletics.
Hamilton began looking for a job after she graduated and found a post on Google to work for the Arizona football team and immediately applied. Once she applied, she followed up with an email, had a couple of interviews and started in March of 2023 during spring ball. Since then, she has had multiple segments on the football team’s social media pages, interviewing players and coaches.
Hamilton does what she does today because she loves to get to know people through their stories.
“My favorite part of my job is interacting with the people here at Arizona football and getting the behind-the-scenes look at everything,” Hamilton said. “All the hard work they do on the field and getting to know them as people; it’s an honor to gain their trust and show other people a good glimpse of who they are besides football.”
Hamilton experienced many important moments from the football program, like going to the Valero Alamo Bowl for her first bowl game experience and being a part of an impactful season. She will be the first team reporter to have two full seasons working with the team and she comes up with all her ideas, writes her own scripts and edits her interviews. You can watch her segments on the Arizona football Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.
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