With our 16th anniversary just around the corner, I thought I should introduce our staff members to give you a fuller picture of the people behind Noozhawk and why your support is so critical to our success.

— Bill Macfadyen, Noozhawk founder and publisher

Diego Sandoval

Diego is a Santa Barbara native, graduate of San Marcos High School and Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, and Noozhawk’s newest sports writer.

How did growing up in Santa Barbara influence your career choice?

Growing up, my family was heavily involved in the local sports community. My two siblings and I played just about every sport that was offered.

I ultimately ended up playing baseball in high school but it was clear to me after exploring every side of local sports that the impact that they have on this town is profound.

From coaches to fans, there are hundreds of people I have met and spoken to about how important sports are in uniting our tight-knit community.

Many of those conversations were happening toward the end of my high school years at San Marcos, so I began to look around at potential careers that included both my love of sports and my love for the community that raised me.

That’s where I found journalism.

As an athlete, I always loved seeing my name in the newspaper or on Noozhawk. It made me feel like I was in the big leagues and everyone knew my name, a feeling that I hope young athletes have when they see their names in my articles now.

A journalism degree from Cal Poly is widely respected in the news world. What attracted you to reporting for an online-only Noozhawk in your hometown?

I’ve always enjoyed Noozhawk as a reader, and my respect for its coverage only grew as I left Santa Barbara and learned more about journalism at Cal Poly.

One of the biggest things that I learned is that news coverage is always evolving.

Not many other publications have been as willing and eager as Noozhawk to adapt to the changing world of journalism. Being fully online, we deliver our content quickly and efficiently.

However, probably the biggest attraction that I had to Noozhawk was how integral it is to the Santa Barbara community, especially in sports.

Local sports would not get the recognition they deserve without Noozhawk, and I think that the way the community is invested in our publication makes my job even more enjoyable.

Oh yeah, and Santa Barbara isn’t a bad place to work, either.

Can you provide an example of the advantages that Noozhawk brings to covering a story like “Santa Barbara High Defense, Rushing Attack Dominate Big Game, 35-0”?

In sports journalism, big rivalry games are always the most exciting and challenging to cover, and there may not be a bigger sports rivalry here than the Big Game between Santa Barbara and San Marcos football every year.

While rivalry games are sometimes difficult due to their magnitude, I found myself simply enjoying every aspect of covering this game. A lot of that is due to Noozhawk’s resources and the clear importance of Noozhawk within this community.

Noozhawk sports editor Barry Punzal used his years of sports reporting experience in town to supply me with background information on the Big Game, I was given access to the press box alongside legendary sports announcer John Martony, and both coaches and teams couldn’t have been more open and willing to talk with me after the game.

Reporting on this game made it clear to me that the work Noozhawk does is a community effort with people contributing from places all around town, something that is truly special and only elevates my own reporting.

Sports in Santa Barbara is nonstop. How do you set priorities and juggle multiple games?

There are games happening every day in town, and most are going on at the same time. This can make it hard to cover every team as extensively as we would like to.

However, one of my goals when I stepped into this position was to ensure that every team, no matter the sport or the school, received the best coverage possible.

So, I try my best to get to as many sports and as many schools as possible on a frequent basis.

When there are multiple games happening at once, the priority will always go to cross-town rivalry matchups. If there are no cross-town games, I will likely decide which one to attend based on which team I haven’t seen in person yet.

No matter what, however, every game gets covered whether Noozhawk is there in person or not.

When it comes to deciding between high school and college sports, the priority almost always goes to the high school games. Colleges have sports information directors and publish their own news releases, but the local high schools rely on Noozhawk for their coverage.

Nevertheless, coverage of UC Santa Barbara, Westmont College and Santa Barbara City College sports will always be present on Noozhawk.

What are some ways the community can get involved with making sure more local sports get covered?

We would love to cover every game in town in person, but that’s simply impossible. So, we need plenty of help from the community.

We are so grateful for all of the coaches who send in updates on their teams after games so that we can accurately report everything in a timely manner, but we could also use help from those who aren’t directly affiliated with a team.

If anyone has any ideas for potential stories or thinks there is a sports-related event that warrants coverage, please send that information to sports@noozhawk.com.

Also, parents and fans of high school teams are encouraged to send in their photos so we can include them in our stories. Every story looks better with a photo.

Overall, feel free to reach out to that email with any questions, comments or concerns about our coverage, and we will do our best to get back to you in a timely manner.

We wouldn’t be able to do the work that we do without the community’s help and we are very grateful for that.

How You Can Help

If you would like to support Diego Sandoval and Noozhawk’s ongoing coverage of Santa Barbara County sports, click here to make an online donation.