Governing a busy schedule is no foreign notion to Sarah Goldstein. For the Managing Editor of The Athletics’ U.S based NHL coverage, directing several writers during a time of erratic schedules was a welcomed challenge. As a veteran of sports media, before joining The Athletic in 2017, she spent three years as a producer at The Washington Post, and nine years as a general editor at ESPN.
A career in journalism was always going to unfold for Sarah Goldstein. As a lover of sports from a young age, her journalistic aspirations began early in life as an elementary school student. This ambition guided her to graduate with a double major in Journalism and Government & Politics at the University of Maryland. Dissimilar to many journalism majors, Goldstein never contributed to the school paper in lieu she would engage in various off-campus internships.
“I didn’t get too involved with the student radio station, or the student paper thing, so I ended up doing more internships. There was this group of European basketball agents that I used to write daily updates for on their website. It was a lot of reading box scores about their players, all in different languages that I had to figure out. This was like 2002, so there wasn’t Google translate or anything. Then I would have to write pieces about them. I also did media work outside of sports. Being in the DC area, I worked for two years doing stories about Christmas shopping and local volleyball games, and all that sort of stuff. I worked a semester for Roll Call, which is a DC newspaper.”
The plenitude of internships served formative for Goldstein. In the closing semester of her undergraduate studies, she was offered an internship role at The Washington Post. But joining the Washington Post staff was not as seamless of a transition as she would have liked. As a result of email complications, the opportunity was almost missed entirely.
“I sent in an application and didn’t hear back from them initially. My dad was like, ‘Oh, you know, they just don’t reply to every single applicant. You probably just didn’t get it’ and I was like, well, I’ll follow up, the worst-case scenario is they say no to me, but instead, they responded with ‘Oh no, we just missed your first email. Okay, great. Can you start next week?”
An internship position soon transitioned into a part time job at the Post. Lasting three years at the publication, in 2008, Goldstein would leave for an editing position at ESPN. Through a former Post colleague, Sarah arranged an interview with the media giant where she landed an associate editing position that in due course led to the position of a general editor. Her abilities blossomed at ESPN. Her near decade of working for the media conglomerate made her instrumental to their NHL group.
In June 2017, The Athletic began a push towards promoting a greater amount of NHL content, prompting many highly regarded hockey-based writers to indulge in the online publication. During this period, a number of ESPN’s hockey writers, including Sarah’s colleagues, Katie Strang and Craig Custance jumped ship rather than to continue toiling with ESPN’s limited hockey content.
“Around September of that year, Craig messaged me on Facebook, asking if I would be interested. So, I was able to go in for an interview, and then about 15 minutes before I was supposed to have my interview, the website crashed. In those days the people fixing it were the founders of the website, so after rescheduling, I finally got my interview with Adam Hansman, Paul and James Mirtle.”
Hired as the managing editor of the Athletics’ U.S based NHL content, Sarah Goldstein’s abilities continue to thrive. As a skilled editor, her capabilities go beyond content adjusting. Her years in the industry enable her to meticulously identify an articles potential. Sarah not only arranges forthcoming content months ahead, she also arranges travel schedules to maximize where each writer will be at any given time. And if a piece needs to be written, Goldstein attentively exposes her aptitude for writing. Her annual NHL Free Agent tracker and Trade Deadline features have assisted hockey fans in keeping tabs on the enormous traffic that occurs on those days.
As the ambiguity of a post-pandemic world persists, rescheduling one’s agenda has become routine by most accounts. When it came to coordinating the continuous alterations of the NHL’s return-to-play plan, Goldstein not only had to unceasingly adjust her uncertainties but her entire teams. After fifteen years in the sports industry, adapting to a new pace has not been wholly new to Sarah. With a diverse range of preceding experience, it takes a lot to destabilize the Maryland graduate. Since her 2017 hire, Sarah Goldstein has become a fundamental component of The Athletic. With a backstage presence that commands the work of so many writers, her contributions facilitate the workload of others, often resulting in meaningful content for hockey fans.
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