Arjuna Ramgopal graduated from UNH in 2014 with a double major in communication and English/journalism and is now a producer/editor for the NFL Network.
Ramgopal started at The New Hampshire (TNH) his sophomore year as a contributing writer for sports covering volleyball games. He covered multiple sports as a staff writer before eventually becoming sports editor his senior year.
“One of my favorite UNH moments, I covered the UNH women’s ball team for three years and head coach Maureen Magarity had arranged for me to travel with the team to Albany, New York when they made it to playoffs,” Ramgopal said. “On their Senior Day, [Magarity] also had me honored with the rest of the team and that was such an amazing feeling.”
Ramgopal said that he knew he wanted to get into sports writing after the year the Patriots went on an undefeated run. “I started watching a lot more videos and analyses and I got really interested and realized I really liked the coverage a lot so I pursued that in high school and then college,” Ramgopal said.
Working for TNH, Ramgopal said that he was exposed to new activities and people that shaped his way of covering events. While resources and connections are important, it takes experience to attain such things.
“The rugby team had a tournament spring of my junior year. The event was for charity and it was really fun. And I spent 10 hours on the field covering a sport I knew nothing about,” Ramgopal said.
He said that his experiences fine-tuned his ability to ask questions that spurred his journalistic capabilities.
“As a journalist coming up you have to know which questions to ask and how to build a story. I would always go into something with an open mind and know the right follow up questions, and you need to know what type of questions to ask all these people in order to build the right story and tell the right information,” Ramgopal said.
After graduating from UNH, Ramgopal became a NESN sports production assistant. He said that he worked there for 14 months, until one day when he saw a job open for the NFL Network and he applied on a whim.
“As a producer you have to be thinking about every single little detail, from the biggest detail to what’s going on behind that monitor, even if it’s a two minute show,” Ramgopal said.
Among other TNH alumni, Ramgopal continues to be an inspiration and a lighthouse for aspiring UNH journalism and English majors.