His career in sports journalism began during his sophomore year of college when the senior sports editor of The Hoya asked him to cover the lacrosse beat. He later went on to become the senior sports editor, which led Graziano to continue pursuing sports journalism professionally as he began covering baseball for The Palm Beach Post following graduation, including covering the Florida Marlins during their first World Series victory in The Hoya spoke with Graziano on the phone about Georgetown University, his career in sports journalism and his perceptions about the NFL going into this fall.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity. I always liked Washington, D. I got together with my high school guidance counselor and was putting a list together in terms of schools to see, and I was basically looking at liberal arts colleges around that size, basically East Coast. And so I became obsessed with it. I applied early, got deferred and then got accepted.
It was the first acceptance I got in March. I also got into the University of Virginia, and I was going to visit both campuses and decide, but I went to Georgetown first. It was one of those campus visits where incoming freshmen stay in a freshman dorm. I went for a night and stayed with freshmen, I think it was in Harbin. Were you a Georgetown basketball fan as a student? That was fun, and the memory that stands out is early that year, like in November or December, Duke came in and we actually beat them.
It was incredible. I remember because my brother who was down visiting who would actually go to Duke and was obsessed with Duke, I was able to get in his face about that for a while. At that point the seeding was all messed up and they ended up being an eighth seed [in the NCAA Tournament], had to play UNLV in the second round, and the next year was kind of disappointing as well. Junior year, after Mourning was gone, we actually missed the tournament for the first time in like 16 or 18 years.
One of the first games I went to was the Duke game freshman year, and it turned out to be the high point of Georgetown basketball while I was there. I was not there during any kind of glory days for sure. I mean, it would be great. I remember minute bus rides to get to a home game, and then the minute bus ride back.
