Amani Rivers first knew she wanted to be a journalist after her eighth-grade basketball team was featured in a local newspaper for winning the championship. She was intrigued by the storytelling that happens in journalism, but also how her small Catholic school basketball team now was heard and seen by the greater Philadelphia area. From then on, she honed in on her journalistic skills. One of her first articles published was in the Philadelphia Inquirer in 2020, a story on how COVID-19 was affecting high school students.
She knew she wanted to write about sports, however, she was too busy playing them — as a three-sport high school athlete, sports was her life. That was until January of 2020, when she tore her ACL in a basketball game. This tumultuous journey of recovery led her to becoming the Editorials Editor of her school’s newspaper, and applying to Loyola Marymount University for journalism.
Now in her junior year at Loyola Marymount University, Rivers is a sports editor for the Los Angeles Loyolan, having three years of sportswriting under her belt. A previous intern for Apple News, Rivers’ ultimate goal is to bring more representation to the world of sports media and leave an impact.
