Degree(s): BJ ’75

Whereabouts: Dallas/Ft. Worth, Texas

What do you do?

Columnist for DallasCowboys.com since 2000. Have covered the Dallas Cowboys in some form or fashion since 1984, first for the Dallas Times Herald for seven years, then as a freelancer for eight years. Prior to that was a sportswriter/columnist for the Jackson (Miss.) Daily News from 1981-1984 and for the Columbia (Mo.) Tribune from 1977-81. First job out of college was for the Anderson (S.C.) Independent. Also have worked in the radio business parttime in Dallas, along with doing TV analyst work for the Dallas Cowboys Blue Star TV Network. For the last 10 seasons have provided daily TV updates on the Cowboys for Nexstar TV stations in the four-state area seven days a week.

How did you get your job?

The Cowboys organization contacted me about becoming a columnist on the team’s website once it was growing serious in 2000 about providing entertaining content, right when interest in the internet was about to explode. Seemed to be a great opportunity at the time, especially since owner Jerry Jones has given our staff unedited opportunity to have a voice

What is the best professional lesson you learned at the J-School?

Accuracy. Accuracy. Accuracy. Plus working hard and taking pride in whatever is written below your byline. Taking full responsibility for what you say on TV or radio. Plus, make sure when reporting you have multiple sources for a story and to be objective and balanced when reporting news.

What advice do you have for current students?

Diversify. No longer can you just be a newspaper or magazine journalist. You must also be able to speak, so the ability to do podcasts or TV segments. Or vice versa, if you are in TV/radio, make sure you have an ability to write news or opinion pieces for print. Same for being involved in social media. But above all, be honest and be accurate. Those of us from the University of Missouri Journalism School have a reputation to uphold that has been spread across the country for more than 50 years, and that is a responsibility I take seriously and have always tried to pay it forward. This isn’t show business.

What is your favorite J-School memory?

I have so many that have shaped my career. This is an early one. Was sent to cover a high school basketball game for the Missourian my junior year, like maybe North Calloway, somewhere east of Columbia on Valentine’s Day. Well, the last name of the game’s star player that night was Love. In my haste to make deadline, I wrote a straight lead. Well, our sports advisor Gary Clark during our weekly review chews me out for not taking advantage of probably – and it was – a once in a lifetime opportunity to be creative, tying Love into Valentine’s Day. Never have forgotten to think outside the box, develop my own style and to make sure when someone reads my piece that they know it’s me without even reading the byline. Lesson learned for sure. Maybe the next best lesson came from my opportunity to cover Missouri basketball and at the time dealing with head coach Norm Stewart. For two hours of credit was a fulltime job, learning to have a backbone, be accurate, be prepared and darn sure better ask good questions. Standing up to Stormin’ Norman was not easy. Might have been the best “class” I ever took to prepare for the real newspaper world, and I’ve told him so years later. And believe me, there is no book for that.

Additional Comments

I am not where I’ve been or am today without lessons learned those two years in J-School, and I’ve been to Super Bowls, national championship games, Summer and Winter Olympics, NBA Championship games, bowl games, the College World Series, championship soccer matches, Dallas Cowboys games overseas, to more high schools for games than I could ever name, car races, The Masters and US. Open, tennis tournaments and this major highlight, riding down the Lake Placid Olympic luge track in preparation for covering the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary. That, and all the rest, has been the ride of a lifetime.

This information was submitted on behalf of Mr. Spagnola with his approval by Corien Brooks( Mizzou J- School Class of 2016) & Yolanda Bruce Brooks, Psy.D. (Dallas Cowboys Team Clinician)