For most of her life, writing was simply how Maria Aldrich '22 made sense of the world—a way to recount her climbing adventures, reflect on her work experiences, or process the unexpected turns life kept throwing at her—but she never imagined it would become her career.
Today, the SUNY Potsdam exercise science graduate covers Major League Baseball and professional sports for national outlets including Last Word on Sports and Heavy Sports, while recently expanding into celebrity news writing for Entertainment Now.
“There’s such a fear for people attending college of having to know what they want to do for the rest of their lives right away. I had that mindset for a very long time, and it made me anxious and scared. That’s not how it is, you have to be willing to adapt as life goes on."
After earning her associate’s degree in zoo technology at Jefferson Community College, Aldrich transferred to SUNY Potsdam to pursue exercise science with a minor in wilderness education. Several years later, her life has taken unexpected turns as she launches a writing career—first with On SI (part of the Sports Illustrated Network).
“I followed one of the most untraditional paths into writing. I’ve always enjoyed it, but I didn’t know that there was truly a career path for it, one that would be stable or feasible,” she said.
A few years out of college, Aldrich started pitching story ideas to editors; at first facing rejection, she didn’t give up. She changed her approach: she would seek out people she admired—inspiring, accomplished athletes—and ask to hear their stories.
“One of the men I reached out to is a former NFL player and a mountaineer. He was willing to share his story and hear about mine,” she said.
That conversation with mountaineer Mark Pattison—one of a select group of climbers to have completed the Seven Summits challenge, scaling the highest peaks on each continent—would ultimately launch her sports writing career. What Aldrich didn't know was that Pattison was also an executive with Sports Illustrated, and that just a week before their interview, SI had debuted a new outdoor adventure series and was looking for writers to help cover it.
“It was perfect timing. I had no idea what would come of that interview; I was just planning to pitch the story to different outlets. A couple of days after the interview, I received an email from a publisher at SI offering me a position. I started doing adventure sports writing, covering surfing, skydiving and climbing,” she said.
She quickly found herself covering compelling stories at the edges of sport and human experience—from the all-female Highlight Pro Skydiving team to profiles of athletes working at the intersection of outdoor recreation and mental health, including Chloe Svolakos, a skydiving coach and therapist who works with adventure sports athletes.
“She was phenomenal. She works a lot with adventure sports athletes who are struggling to overcome their anxieties, depression or any mental health battle,” Aldrich said. “Mental health and adventure sports are very important to me, so hearing from her a story of combining adventure sports and her job as a therapist was really cool to me.”
From adventure writing, Aldrich moved into covering college sports for SI before shifting her primary focus to Major League Baseball, where she now works as a contractual writer for Heavy Sports and Last Word on Sports.
“I live in the Adirondacks, so I am nowhere near Yankee Stadium or Daikin Park. So, a lot of my writing is in the living room. I have the live stat sheet on one monitor and my writing on another, and I’ve got my game playing on the TV. The funny thing is, I was not a baseball fan before doing this. But again, with writing, you need to be willing to take risks, and I fell in love with it,” she said.
Before the Byline
Although she never took a writing class at SUNY Potsdam, her academic experiences in the exercise science and wilderness education programs gave her the tools she draws on every day as a sports journalist.
“At the time, I wasn’t into basketball, baseball, or football, but now my whole life revolves around it. Many of the exercise science students were athletes, and I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was learning and picking up on their thought process,” she said.
Under the guidance of Tanya Hewitt, coordinator of the exercise science program, Aldrich studied topics ranging from performance nutrition to fitness management, gaining a deeper understanding of athlete health and performance.
“I looked up to Tanya, especially in the nutrition class. She was just so kind and helpful and brought an excitement about teaching. I had a really good experience with her—and of course with Adam Wheeler,” she said.
Through the wilderness education program, working closely with Wheeler, she developed skills in rock and ice climbing, backpacking and wilderness first responder training.
“I was going through a very dark time in my life and I needed something new, something fresh that would give me anxiety in the right way. It’s normal to feel anxiety when you’re climbing, and I wanted to feel normal about what I was feeling,” she said. “I took an ice climbing course and immediately I was blown away. I was a struggling climber, but Adam and his teaching assistants were there, guiding us along. Finding the community with the wilderness education students was huge. Once I started learning to climb, I just really fell in love with it, and I wanted to document my experiences through writing.”
To complete up her undergraduate degree, Aldrich led a training program for students enrolled in a winter expedition course, bringing them into the exercise science lab to calculate their baseline fitness level before creating a training plan for the wilderness ed students.
“Running through that program with them, I learned the safe way to train for climbing. We talked about all the different exercises and how you can translate that into your personal life as well,” she said.
Life After Potsdam
After she graduated from SUNY Potsdam, Aldrich landed a job as an outdoor recreation program assistant for the Cerebral Palsy Association of the North Country. Drawing on her SUNY Potsdam training, she brought clients white-water rafting, hiking, and horseback riding. Whether leading those programs or pursuing her own climbing adventures, she kept finding herself reaching for a pen.
“I really try to make the experiences as immersive in my writing as possible, so people, if they can’t get outside, can experience it through writing. That’s all a bridge to where I am right now,” she said.
After one year with CP of the North Country, she moved to the Adirondacks to work with youth in the outdoors, and later served as a counselor at an inpatient rehab center.
“Through all of that time, I was documenting my experiences through writing—I had all of these job changes going on and the one constant was writing,” she said.
As writing became more central to her life, Aldrich kept pitching stories and building relationships with editors—until the day she scheduled the interview with Pattison that changed everything.
“I entered that interview so excited to speak with him, but I had no idea what was coming. I had no idea that there was going to be a career following that interview,” she said. “It’s one of those moments that shows up; you do your best and good things do come.”
Now, from her home in the Adirondacks—writing about the Yankees struggles with injuries, or Aaron Judge’s status for a series against the Red Sox—she shapes each dispatch with the same instinct that once drove her to document ice climbs and wilderness expeditions. The path wasn't one she could have predicted—but that's exactly the lesson she hopes others take away.
“Don’t be afraid to be told ‘no.’ Working with editors, you’re going to hear that all the time. Don’t be afraid of that, embrace it, and take your story elsewhere. If it means that much to you, keep pushing that story,” she said. “That’s something that I’ve had to learn along the way. Life takes you in weird directions sometimes; you just have to go with it.”
Article and photos by Jason Hunter