by Kerry Ryan

OSWEGO, N.Y. — On Tuesday, October 10th, the Sheldon Hall Ballroom was filled with members of the oswego community; all waiting to listen to ‘I Am Oz’ speaker and ESPN writer, Kate Fagan. Fagan shared her stories of coming out as a gay woman, working for ESPN, and her inspiration to write the book What Made Maddy Run?. What Made Maddy Run? is the story of University of Pennsylvania freshman track star Madison Holleran, who died by suicide at the age of 19 years old after secretly struggling with anxiety and depression.

Fagan originally wrote Holleran’s story as a piece for ESPN. After receiving numerous emails written by high school and college students, as well as their parents, Fagan said she knew that she needed to dig deeper into the story.

“I realized that we had really only touched on a certain piece of the story in the magazine piece and that there were other roads to travel down to make the story more fleashed out for the rest of the college students and young people who saw themselves in her,” Fagan said.

This isn’t Fagan’s first non-fiction story, however. The Former WNBA player previously released a book retelling the story of her own struggles. The Reappearing Act: Coming Out as Gay on a College Basketball Team Led by Born-Again Christians explains the background of Fagan’s difficulty with her identity and how it would affect her and those around her.

What Made Maddy Run? was an instant New York Times best-seller. This is a first for Fagan, who said she has always wanted to be a writer.

“Basketball was like the pursuit,” Fagan said. “I guess I’ll be a writer when I’m done. And so when i was done playing basketball, that’s when I moved the writing to the front burner.”

Fagan said her next goal is to get some of her fictional work published. She said  that, unlike non-fiction, there’s a different way of storytelling in fiction and it allows writers to have more creative freedom.

What Made Maddy Run? by Kate Fagan is available online and in bookstores now.

The nationally ranked Oswego State men’s hockey team defeated the Canton Kangaroos 3-2 on Saturday night. With the win, the Lakers move to 3-1 overall while the Kangaroos drop to 1-3.

After taking an early lead in the first period off of Josh Zizek’s team leading fourth goal of the season, the Lakers never looked back. The team continued its success on the power play in the second period with AJ D’Orazio scoring the first goal of his young Oswego career. However, Canton would not give up easily as they would pull within one. Just under two minutes later, Lakers’ alternate captain Cameron Berry gave Oswego the insurance goal they were looking for to put them up 3-1.

In goal, Canton’s Austin Washkurak made 37 saves while Oswego’s Cedric Hansen earned his first NCAA win, stopping 20 shots.

Oswego will look to build on their two game winning streak Friday night at 7 pm when they take on Buffalo State at the Marano Campus Center Arena.