Mason alumna gets her close-up with the president

Colleen Rich — Thu, 21 Jan 2021 22:36:58 +0000

Mason alumna gets her close-up with the president Colleen Rich Thu, 01/21/2021 - 17:36

Mason alumna Ariana Freeman (far left) worked in the Capitol Rotunda during the 59th presidential inauguration as a broadcast associate for CBS Evening News. Photo provided

When 4:45 a.m. came and went and her Uber hadn’t shown up, Ariana Freeman shook off her heels, strapped on a pair of boots and hoofed it 30 minutes to the U.S. Capitol.

Nothing was going to stop the George Mason University alumna from covering her first presidential inauguration. Freeman spent the day inside the Capitol Rotunda reporting as a broadcast associate for CBS Evening News.

“It was absolutely amazing and I’m just so thankful I got to go,” Freeman said. “I was taking it all in.”

Ariana Freeman

On Wednesday, her job consisted of working with the pool camera from NBC to inform her senior producer of key happenings behind the scene. When she saw President Joe Biden coming down the hallway, she alerted her producer to get ready to roll the rotunda camera in five seconds.

“You see the gifts presentation but, hey, you might have missed [Vice President] Kamala Harris just winked at Sen. Amy Klobuchar,” Freeman said. “Giving that color, those details that the viewers and correspondents don’t see, pretty much that was my job—to catch them coming in, coming out, make sure our cameras were rolling.”

Two years ago, Freeman couldn’t have imagined herself working in politics, let alone covering the 59th presidential inauguration. The former collegiate women’s basketball player always thought she’d end up working in sports, possibly as a sideline reporter.

Her master’s degree, after all, was in sport and recreation studies with a concentration in sport management. She freelanced with the Washington Football Team’s Charitable Foundation in addition to serving as a features reporter for ESPN+ broadcasts of George Mason men’s and women’s basketball games.

But as she finished graduate school in 2019, she ran into a former basketball coach at her alma mater, St. Paul VI Catholic High School in Fairfax. He suggested she reach out to a friend of his, Jan Crawford, who served as a political and legal correspondent for CBS News. Hesitant at first to venture into politics, she agreed to shadow at CBS News for a day.

“The moment I walked into CBS News… I think I just loved the energy I felt,” she said.

By the end of the day, the Washington bureau chief offered her a position as a news associate, essentially an internship position. Two full-time promotions and two years later, she’s covered press conferences at the White House, was inside the Senate chamber for the 2020 impeachment trial of President Trump and reported on breaking news such as the deadly shooting in a Virginia Beach municipal building. Freeman currently works daily with CBS Evening News host Norah O’Donnell to ensure her script and broadcast is accurate.

“I’m so new into news that I’m still learning,” Freeman said. “It is definitely way different than sports, but it is just so rewarding. Politics just promote that change I want to see.”

Freeman, who received her bachelor’s degree in journalism at the University of Colorado, credits her professors at Mason for emphasizing the power of networking. She also said the sport management program stressed elements that transcended sports, such as finding “little nuggets and a different way to tell a story.”

“Some people just have that drive,” said Sport and Recreation Studies Associate Professor Pierre Rodgers, who was Freeman’s advisor. “Ariana always had a plan to do what she was going to do. She was going to be great no matter where she went.”

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Mason alumna blazing a trail for women in the NFL

Colleen Rich — Wed, 13 Jan 2021 21:26:32 +0000

Mason alumna blazing a trail for women in the NFL Colleen Rich Wed, 01/13/2021 - 16:26

Callie Brownson. Photo courtesy of the Cleveland Browns.

George Mason University alumna Callie Brownson and her boss, Cleveland Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski, often joke that there is no job description for her role as the team’s chief of staff.

“It’s an anything and everything role,” said Brownson, who received her bachelor’s degree with a concentration in sport management from the College of Education and Human Development in 2016. “Basically, how we operate as a team runs through me. I kind of enjoy the challenge that no day is the same.”

While her job as chief of staff—the first female to hold the position in the NFL—usually pertains to logistics, operation, and organizing practice plans, Brownson has been a “utility player” for the Browns during an unprecedented season that continues Sunday in a playoff matchup against the defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs. Most recently, she has put on a headset and fulfilled her true passion—coaching.

During three games this season, Brownson has filled in as a position coach for a Browns’ coaching staff dealing with positive COVID tests. On Jan. 9, she coached the tight ends during the Browns’ upset of Pittsburgh in a wild card playoff game, the franchise’s first postseason victory in 26 years.

The Alexandria native also coached the tight ends on Nov. 29 in a victory over Jacksonville, becoming the first woman to coach a position in an NFL regular-season game. The sideline jacket she wore that day and an autographed game ball sit in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Earlier in the season, she joined Washington Football Team coaching intern Jennifer King and game official Sarah Thomas in the first NFL game with a female official and female coaches on both teams.

“It’s really special what’s happening in the league,” said Brownson, who is in her first year with the Browns after serving as a full-time intern with the Buffalo Bills last season. “I think it’s a really cool time for women to see all these possibilities and all these barriers breaking.”

Mason sport management instructor Charley Casserly, a longtime NFL executive who won three Super Bowls with the Washington Football Team, recalled Brownson’s ambition and drive.

While pursuing her degree at Mason, Brownson was also playing football for the D.C. Divas—Washington’s professional female football team—and coaching softball and football at her alma mater, Mount Vernon High School.

“When they are already working on their life’s goals when they are still in college, those are the ones that are most successful,” Casserly said. “It was just a question of where she was going to be successful.”

Brownson said Casserly’s advice to “take advantage of every opportunity to get in front of people” has always stuck with her, whether she was at Mount Vernon, working a scouting internship with the New York Jets or on Buddy Teevens’ staff at Dartmouth as the first female full-time Division I football coach.

Brownson said the smaller size of Mason’s sport management program and having multiple classes with faculty such as Professor Robert Baker and Associate Professor Craig Esherick helped sharpen her skills, narrow her career direction and develop a plan to reach those goals.

“Ending up at that program was such a stepping stone,” she said. “The involvement and push: ‘What is your plan? How are you going to do it?’ That is extremely rewarding. It’s really special.”

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Jerome Boettcher

Mason alumna gets her close-up with the president

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Mason alumna blazing a trail for women in the NFL

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