Robby Howard

Writer

Chicago, IL.

I believe in the power of stories. I believe stories have the power to teach, transform, captivate and fascinate. They can change the way you view the world, and they can change people's lives. Stories are all around us. In the people we see, the products we use, the places we go. Everything has a story. I take pride in sharing those stories.

Robby Howard

Writer

Chicago, IL.

Declared cancer free, GC coach Neal Young is loving life again
Neal Young couldn’t walk the laundry hamper down to the basement and make it back up the stairs. Sometimes, he didn't feel like getting out of bed. Sometimes, he felt like he was spiraling down a black hole he was never going to escape. The 28-year-old Goshen College men’s basketball coach never thought this would happen.
The Goshen News
Mexican baseball league at Rogers Park breaks barriers
Two hours before a rare Mexican Regional Baseball League game under the lights at Rogers Park, Salvador Castillo’s second job starts. During the work week, “Chavo”, as his friends call him, works as a welder in Middlebury. But by the time the weekend comes around, he spends his time around something he’s loved since he was 12.
The Goshen News
Goshen College men's basketball team enjoys 'unique experience' to play Indiana State Prison team
When 10 Goshen College men’s basketball players arrived in the GC athletics lounge Thursday morning, most had no idea where they were going that day. Their coach, Neal Young, had promised them if they attended this final mini camp of the summer, they would get to play a game. He didn’t tell them who they’d be playing.
The Goshen News
GHS star Isaac Huerta overcomes obstacles in 'success story'
First she just sat next to him smiling for cameras, then she put her arm around him. She never thought this moment would happen for more than one reason. It was more than a dream come true – it was a dream she never thought would happen. “I didn’t imagine that my 13-year-old son was going to be here,” De La Vega said through a translator of the now high school senior after four years in the U.S.
The Goshen News
Rick Mirer adapts to life after football
From time to time, Rick Mirer still opens his mailbox to find a piece of history that takes him back to a different time. Often it's a Sports Illustrated from Sept. 24, 1990. The headline on the iconic cover reads, “Golden Boy.”. A sophomore Notre Dame quarterback wearing the No. 3 has his arms stretched out as he enters the endzone to help the Irish beat Michigan.
The Goshen News
PART 1 OF 2: Paralysis doesn't keep Goshen native Trent Beachy from great accomplishments
Trent Beachy felt the warm, mid-August Colorado sun starting to bake him in the desert. He had already run roughly 40 miles, and now he was climbing a mountain with an elevation gain of about one mile. The demons in his head he had worked so hard to tune out started to creep in. “What am I doing?”.
The Goshen News
Kaila Hulls finds her own stripes
Assembly Hall sits empty and quiet, except for the people part of the IU women’s basketball team. It’s a Monday, and it’s the first day of official practice of the 2013-14 season. Two years ago, redshirt sophomore forward Kaila Hulls never expected to be here on this court or to be part of this team.
Indiana Daily Student
Title IX 'changed everything for women' 40 years ago
Mildred Ball grew up in Gary dribbling basketballs, digging volleyballs and drilling softballs.
The Times
What the men's riders have to prove
"I just want to look back and know that we laid it all out there. We're definitely not going to be content to just sit in there and watch the race unfold. We've put so much into this." "I literally just totally committed my whole person to the team. Every ounce went to the team." Eric Anderson had pondered the same question for weeks.
Indiana Daily Student
Culture shock
When senior guard Andrea Newbauer walked into the IU women’s basketball locker room for the first time as a freshman in 2010, she could feel the divide. Two or three players would be in one corner talking. Another group clustered on the other side. The cliques were visible.
Inside Indiana Magazine
Team biking across US to fund research
When the alarm sounds off at 4:30 a.m. to start training, 19-year-old Kyle Claffey hates it just as much as any teenager. He hates that alarm for waking him up that early, but he doesn’t hate the training. Riding his bicycle is his escape. It’s what he loves. Claffey, who lives in Phoenix, woke up at 4:30 a.m. for months to train for Race Across America (RAAM), a 3,000-mile bike race that starts in Oceanside, Calif., and finishes in Annapolis, Md.
Indiana Daily Student
Local to be 2015 Walker Cup captain
John “Spider” Miller’s office reflects his three biggest loves: family, golf and beer. Everywhere he looks around his workspace at Best Beers, Inc. in Bloomington, he is surrounded by pictures and trophies that showcase a career full of memories that keep him smiling and chuckling. His business cards lie cradled between two golden golf balls.
Indiana Daily Student
Standing in the Hall of Fame
Rich Holdeman almost never opened the email that sent him to the Hall of Fame. He had retired from coaching the IU club hockey team in 2006. When he scrolled through his inbox, he didn’t understand why the American Collegiate Hockey Association had sent him a message. He had moved on from his hockey days.
Indiana Daily Student
VIDEO: Andrean State Championship
Coach Brooke Baker-Runyon and Andrean softball players describe how their calm emotions resulted in a state title.
YouTube
VIDEO
IDSnews.com | Mini 500 champs reflect on another era
Thirty-seven years ago, the crowd inside Assembly Hall roared for the girls in green. The women raced up and down the court. They flew off their seat. They tried to defy gravity, turning corners as sharply as humanly possible. Thirty-seven years ago, the women of Delta Delta Delta won the Mini 500, a tricycle race that took place in Assembly Hall the day before the men’s Little 500 race.
Indiana Daily Student
Beta Theta Pi wins amid controversy
The Beta Theta Pi senior said he proclaimed two months ago that if the sun was shining on race day, his team would win. On the final lap of Saturday’s sunny 63rd men’s Little 500, Kragie saw a sliver of sunshine, a tiny space separating Delta Tau Delta rider Paul Smith and the inside of the track.
Indiana Daily Student

Every Saturday started with a newspaper.

That's what made me the word nerd I am today.

Growing up, I watched my dad read the Indianapolis Star everyday. Like so many young boys, I longed to imitate my dad, so I did many things just as he did. Well, except the coffee drinking. But that, too, has now changed.

He read The Star every day. I never got up early enough before school to do that, but on relaxing Saturdays I had plenty of time to do that.

I remember reading Bob Kravitz, who had a snappy, snarky, sometimes searing way of communicating people's stories. I couldn't get enough of it.

I had wanted to be a writer since third grade. But when I understood that sports writers got paid to go to sporting events, my life changed.

They get paid? And they get in for free? AND they get courtside seats? Count me in.

So, 13-year-old me had made my career decision.

I live for telling stories and communicating ideas to a mass audience.

I started as a sports editor at my high school newspaper at Munster High School, then moved up to editor-in-chief my senior year. Our paper raked in national awards, and I was a finalist for the Indiana High School Journalist of the Year my senior year.

I continued my career at IU. During my time in Bloomington, I worked for the prestigious Indiana Daily Student as sports editor and a beat writer for four different sports, I interned at The Times of Northwest Indiana as part of the Pulliam Internship and I developed other media skills by hosting a sports talk radio show for three years.

I've also developed tools to advance me in this changing media climate. For several stories, some that you can find on this site, I have been my own photographer. I have a YouTube channel, where I have done post-game analysis and preview shows. And as I mentioned before, with my three years of radio experience, I've also done podcasts. I like to think I'm versatile.

Currently I work for The Goshen News as a sports reporter where I cover Notre Dame football and men's and women's basketball, Goshen College and prep sports. I have an enterprise and digital media focus, meaning I get the chance to dig deeper to concentrate on true stories. I also get to do videos and podcasts as I work on advancing the brand into the digital age.

Robby Howard

About

Robby Howard