Pink hasn’t always been

my color…

I was never the girly girl growing up. ‘The girl with the ponytail and thick Nike headband’ and ‘The girl who never wears anything but softball shirts’ are some of the names I collected during my time in elementary and middle school. I wore the tomboy title like a badge of honor, not necessarily because I didn’t want to change out the basketball shorts for a jean skirt once in a while, but because I thought having a name like ‘tomboy’ was an out. An out to being different. I could run with a distinct crowd while avoiding being questioned or judged, a crowd filled with girls like me. 

I was attracted to the blues of the world for the longest time. Dark blue, sky blue, any kind of blue. Pink was too loud; it had too many strings attached to it. Pink meant sensitive and innocent.

Pink was too girly.

My life consisted of a lot of dark colors up until I was 14, which was the age where I was truly behind a microphone for the first time. I used a microphone many times before then, whether it was for a production for my middle school’s theater company or doing the morning announcements. But, there’s a difference between being behind a microphone and using one. To be behind one is to use your own words rather than someone else’s, to project your thoughts rather than the ones typed up for you. 

For most, being behind a microphone for the first time is terrifying. Oddly enough for me, being behind a microphone brought the biggest sense of clarity I’ve ever experienced in my life. Sure, I was only discussing the school district’s weekly sports news for a local radio station in a makeshift recording studio, but it was so much more than that to me. Full of insecurities and questions about my self worth, I had finally felt heard.

I knew right after that first show I wanted to be behind a microphone for the rest of my life. I didn’t know what that entailed at the time or how I would get there. AP style was a foreign language to me and I would’ve said a nut graf is a made up word at the time, but somehow I knew journalism was the path for me. I was just a girl who always felt like she talked too much and could now talk as much as she wanted for everyone to actively listen. 

After serving as a junior sports reporter for the Cy-Sports Live radio show for over a year, I joined the Bridgeland Student Media newspaper staff in August 2020. There, I found I loved writing just as much as I did talking. After honing my skills in various mediums of storytelling my first year on staff, I expanded my horizons. In 2021, I became the first female Sports Editor in the newspaper’s existence and joined the VYPE U program, an internship under a leading high school sports coverage outlet, VYPE Media. Today, I am the co-editor-in-chief of my school’s newspaper, a second-year member of the VYPE U program, and have bylines in Houston Chronicle and vype.com on top of work for my school’s publications. 

Having said all that, moving up in the journalism world hasn’t come without its challenges.

Looking at major media outlets today, women occupying jobs in sports journalism is something seen more and more commonly, especially in collegiate and professional-level settings. When tuning into any televised sporting event, it’s common to see a woman as a sideline reporter. The trend of females moving into high ranking positions of power in the sports media realm is on the rise, whether they are an executive editor of a league-wide publication or behind a studio desk.

It is more than empowering to see a sense of gender equality enforced in powerhouse sports media companies. Knowing there is a place for myself and other women like me in the industry means more than anything.

It just seems like there are not a lot of young women like me who know that yet.

During my time building my brand and credibility as a journalist by reporting on high school sports in the greater Houston area, I have received high praise from the best in the business for my broadcasting and publishing work. I made connections with some of journalism’s finest who have or currently work for the Houston Astros, ESPN, MLB, 247 Sports, Bally Sports, Houston Chronicle and more. In a little over a year as a social media reporter, I’ve acquired millions of impressions and hundreds of thousands of engagements on Twitter. And in just my first year of scholastic journalism alone, I won a gold medal and silver medal and two honorable mention awards from the Interscholastic League Press Conference and five awards from the Texas Association of Journalism Educators.

However, all of this hard work and recognition can be forgotten in an instant when comparing it to the input from my peers and coworkers.

My whole life, I knew I was different. It wasn’t until I was guided to the world of journalism, specifically sports journalism, I finally accepted my uniqueness. I stuck out because I valued my voice. I just didn’t know how to use it. Now with journalism as an outlet, I draw attention because I would rather talk about how many rushing yards a boy has rather than what color shirt he wore to school.

I knew being so open to the public about my work and branching out professionally as a 16-year-old girl would come with some hardships. I have been openly mocked by classmates and barked at and ridiculed by a group of high school boys for the entirety of filming a pregame report. “You suck” and “You are a terrible interviewer” have been screamed at me in the middle of reporting. I have had a media outlet try to hold my breaking story from being published because it was ‘just another story about baseball’.

It is so easy to let one of these instances cancel out 100 positive affirmations. Seeing male counterparts of mine do similar work and never have to conquer this degree of animosity is even more difficult to process. As I take more steps toward centerstage, these situations come more frequently and I know they will continue to do so. Although it is still something I am working on conquering, I’ve learned not to try to drown out the negative noise, but to instead overpower it with my work and presence.

When I first started being the subject of ridicule is when I first started to see pink in a different light. Yes, pink is loud and girly, but that’s exactly why it became my favorite color. Pink is my personal statement to the world that I am proud of my strong and feminine voice. More importantly, pink is a warning to my critics that whatever they throw my way, I will continue to be as bold and as girly as I want to be.

I started to value the color pink.

Pink is a staple of mine I’ve incorporated into almost every facet of my work. It is one of the main colors in my show, Under Review With Haylie Stum. It serves as the color of my microphone in almost every important event I cover. Truthfully, it is a color I’ve brought into my everyday life.

As I mentioned earlier, there is not a lack of women in the sports journalism industry currently. What there is a lack of is girls expressing their interests in sports at my age. The fears around receiving backlash from peers, the hesitation to stray from the norms and the lack of guidance to make a girl feel comfortable getting started makes it feel almost impossible for any girl my age to want to communicate interest in sports.

I am here to change that.

By sharing my own journey, I hope to encourage the young women of today to use their voices now. Whether it is through the school’s newspaper or creating a podcast, motivating women to capitalize on their young perspective despite what others might think of them is something I aim to do through my work. 

I don’t know when the microphone will turn off for me or when I’ll publish my last story. What I do know is when it does, my job will not be finished. Even after my career in journalism, I plan to give back to the industry that gave me so much. I have multiple mentors who truly helped me get to where I am today. I intend on doing the same for the next group of aspiring journalists. Most importantly, I will continue to be an advocate for young women to enter the sports journalism realm and vocalize their thoughts and opinions.

But before I’m able to do that, I have my own path to pave.

A vision board is taped to the mirror I use to get ready every day. My goals of being a household name in the journalism field and a strong female figure for others to look up to are pasted front and center. I aspire to be someone who pushes boundaries and leaves a positive impact on as many lives as possible.

I hope one day when someone sees my name on TV or under a big media outlet, they read it in the color pink.