This is (my) March

Alexandra Athon Diamant
Mar 26, 2024
5 min read

Updated: Mar 27, 2024

There are no days and times, there's just March.

March Madness is one of the most incredible events to be a part of.

Truly, I do not know what to write about today, but this has been my life since last Wednesday and will continue to be my life though this upcoming Saturday.

There has been a lot in my little career this past year that has been challenging. I worked so hard while I was at UCLA to build a positive rapport and grow my young career.

As I mentioned in a previous blog, this year has been nothing shy of tumultuous. There have been mind games, mental barriers, and growing pains that I never thought I would encounter.

I am not really sure why I never thought they would come about, but for the most part, everything at UCLA was so smooth.

In a way, I guess it could be said that it was deceptive.

Anyways, like I said, March is incredible.

I did not grow up as a basketball fan.

My dad has always been very into college basketball, but it was just never something I was terribly interested in as a kiddo.

Of course, growing up in the 2000’s I knew of Duke and Coach K and UNC and Roy William. I knew Kentucky was good, and so was Kansas, maybe Michigan State, but that was kinda about it.

When I transferred to UCLA, I was unaware of the legacy it held within the athletic community, especially within basketball.

My first day, when I was in Pauley with my boss, he asked me if I knew how long it had been since UCLA had won a Men’s Basketball National Title. Of course I knew we had just come off of a Final Four run, but truly I did not know the answer. So whether it has been two years, five years, 10 years, or the 26 years it had actually been, I knew the safe answer:

Too long.

I was minimally involved in Men’s Basketball while at UCLA. Mostly super behind the scenes stuff, aka only office work.

Women’s Basketball on the other hand was essentially my primary sport.

UCLA WBB has been BUILDING for the past several years. For a while it has kinda seemed like it was thought that the next class would be it.

Somehow, even though the season was rough, we were able to knock down USC in both games in the 2021-22 season.

The team made it to the WNIT that year, losing to South Dakota State in the Semifinals.

The next year KiKi Rice was coming to Westwood along with Londynn Jones and Gabriela Jaquez, the younger sister of UCLA Men’s Basketball’s star Guard Triple J (Jaime Jaquez Jr.). Not to mention the other outstanding freshman additions of Christeen Iwuala and Lina Sontag.

Needless to say, the future was really looking bright for the program.

And it was.

UCLA ended up being a four seed at the end of the 2022-23 season which meant we were going to be a host site for the first and second rounds of the tournament.

I had hosted and moderated press conferences postgame for UCLA Football, Women’s Basketball and for the NCAA Men’s Volleyball Tournament, but I had not hosted an event that seemed this big yet.

Our Athletic Communications team asked if I wanted to moderate and I was ecstatic.

It was an incredible experience, and slightly uncomfortable.

I remember a young journalist calling out a question in the middle of the press conference. She had come in late and did not hear the opening remarks where I said, “please only ask a question when you have the microphone in your hand and remember to state your name and publication.”

As the moderator I interjected. It felt so wrong, I thought about how this girl cannot be that far off from my age and how am I the authority, but I was and it’s part of the job.

Honestly I felt like shit afterwards, but the liaison from the NCAA said I handled it well and as I should have.

That gave me some relief.

I made a point to find the girl and inform her on the press conference protocol so it wouldn’t happen again and so that I could feel as if she knew that I was not against her, I was just doing my job and she was trying to do hers.

When I finally started working with USC Sports Brands and Communications, I was assigned to Men’s and Women’s Basketball.

The grandeur of the Men’s team this past year was overwhelming, and quite frankly, did not live up to expectations, especially as they came into the season ranked No. 21 by the AP.

Conversely, the Women, I think it is safe to say they knocked expectations out of the park. They also entered the season ranked No. 21 by the AP, only to move to clinch a one seed for March Madness.

So here I am again, in the same position as I was last year, moderating press conferences for the first and second rounds of March Madness. Four teams, 57 names to be comfortable and confident with saying, 12 press conferences, three scripts, and 15 minutes to manage.

This isn’t a woe is me moment, because I recognise the privilege that it is and the hard work it has taken to be in my position at 24-years-old, but to say what I did this past weekend is easy, and what I am about to do this upcoming weekend wouldn’t be entirely true either.

The easiest way to put it is that not everybody is going to get to ask a question, and some journalists are going to be unhappy with you, some of them are even going to let you have it.

In fact, some Sports Information Directors may even try to hijack your press conference and delegate to journalists who have not even raised their hands. They may even make your job more difficult by not communicating which athletes of theirs would be attending, or deliver their athletes to the presser on time.

Much like on live interviews, there is a time limit, you learn quickly how long or short winded coaches and players are in their answers, and you have to know when the last question can be asked. You have to recognise which journalists have been following the team, or even just women’s sports in general. You have to be direct and firm in who has the next question. You have to know the protocols. You have to know your timing.

I don’t make the rules, I just follow them.

There is a lot to balance and manage in this role, and yes, in a way I am tooting my own horn, but it is because I have come to realise that managing this isn’t necessarily easy.

I have never expected praise and have an interesting relationship with it as well, I just come to do my job and do it to my best ability. But ultimately, the positive feedback I received from the NCAA, from Hammond, from SID’s, and from some journalists, started to outweigh the challenges.