A few decades and a few dozen accolades later, a reflective O’Neil sat aboard a train bound for Paris to cover Olympic skateboarding, of all things — her final assignment before leaving the only job she’d ever known. 

“I just started sobbing,” O’Neil told an audience of student journalists during a live recording of assistant journalism professor Nick Pietruszkiewicz’s YouTube talk show, “What’s Your Story,” in the Open Air studio on Tuesday afternoon. “It’s not like what I did was who I am. Whether that’s healthy or not, it does become part of your identity. But whatever you do in life, whether you’re a sports writer for 35 or 50 years or however long, you’ve got to find new ways to challenge yourself.”

Now the senior associate athletic director of strategic communication at Villanova University, one of the programs she covered extensively as an award-winning college basketball reporter, O’Neil’s professional arc is a testament to embracing unfamiliar settings in pursuit of a story.

That theme was central to a wide-ranging chat with Pietruszkiewicz, one of her former editors at ESPN. Their conversation also contained pearls of sports media wisdom culled from the Final Four, the Kentucky Derby, Major League Baseball and NFL press boxes and just about every other destination event that would populate the serious sports fan’s bucket list. 

“As the business has evolved, there’s so much access now. Highlights are on YouTube and social media,” O’Neil said. “Everybody knows what the results of a game are. Your job is no longer to tell the story of the game. Your job now is to take people where they can’t go, where they don’t have access. I always tell students your best sources are your own eyes and your own ears. Write what you see and hear when you’re at a game. That’s the essence of storytelling.”

A Q&A session followed Pietruszkiewicz’s interview. In a lighthearted moment, a student asked about the dynamics of a healthy writer-editor relationship, unaware that the duo had engaged in their fair share of respectful tussles.

“Every writer is very possessive of their baby, which is their story, right?” O’Neil said. “It’s very personal. When I write, there’s a rhythm in my head, so when someone else comes in and changes that rhythm, I can get a little defensive. But I would never not want to have an editor. They are trying to help you. They’re trying to make your story better. Any question they have is one the reader would have, and if you don’t answer them, you’re doing your story a disservice.”

“In my 14 years at ESPN, there was probably no one I had more disagreements with, but they were productive disagreements," added Pietruszkiewicz. "Dana and I had some great conversations where we got to a common place.”

The author of three books, including an exhaustive history of Big East Conference basketball, O’Neil honed a reputation for crafting richly detailed longform features, routinely taking readers to those places only the credentialed press can see. A 2021 inductee in the United States Basketball Writers Association Hall of Fame, she served as the Philadelphia Daily News’ Villanova beat reporter from 2001 to 2007 before landing a role as a national college basketball writer at ESPN. Her departure from ESPN in 2016 led her to The Athletic, where she still occasionally writes freelance stories.

O’Neil spoke candidly about the challenges of being a woman in sports media — particularly in the digital realm, where toxic discourse lurks around every corner. “I’ve blocked more people on Twitter than I follow,” O’Neil said.

Finally, O’Neil was asked what advice she’d give herself if she were just breaking into the business.

“Be patient with yourself,” O’Neil said. “I think everybody is in a hurry — how do I get to ESPN? How do I get here or there? Don’t worry if your friend has an internship at MLB.com and yours is at a small newspaper. It’s not a race. It’s not a competition. Sometimes the smaller opportunities are better than the big ones. I had an internship at a newspaper in Trenton, New Jersey. I covered Little League baseball and then the Yankees.”

Past guests of Pietruszkiewicz’s show include Baseball Hall of Famer Tim Kurkjian, NBC Sports reporter Jimmy Roberts and ESPN SportsCenter anchor Matt Barrie.

To access the show page on YouTube, click here.