Name: Stephen (Stephunk) Proffitt
Major: SMAD—Journalism
Minor: Music Industry & Sport Communication
Year: Class of 2015
Courtney Luzarraga: How did you get involved with Journalism?
Stephen Proffitt: I worked on my high school paper just because it was an easy class, besides taking study hall, because my mom wouldn’t let me take study hall in high school. She said it looked bad.
The only reason I went to the Breeze interest meeting is because they had free pizza, and I was already frustrated with D-Hall pizza. So I went, and they had Dominos, my favorite. They told me to bring in a sample, so I did, but they didn’t contact me for three months. And then they asked me to cover a men’s basketball game, so I did, and I haven’t missed one since. I also write for baseball, and I write columns every week with my scathing opinion on national topics. That takes up a good deal of my life.
CL: What else are you involved with on campus?
SP: Then there is WXJM, my second home…Maybe Carrier would be my second home. WXJM is definitely the best thing I have gotten involved with on campus. Freshmen year, I saw the kids wearing the sweatshirts and I was like “Dang, that sweatshirt looks pretty cool.” So I googled it, and the rest is history.
CL: You repair bikes, how did you get started on that?
SP: I just thought bikes were a normal part of life, until I got to college, and my grandmother asked me if I had any friends to ride with, and I said, “no one rides bikes here.” Over the course of time I found people here who ride bikes. Then I realized fixing them was really fun.
It was toward the end of high school, my friend David and I found this bike store in Richmond. We bought two road bikes and they kind of became our bikes permanently. Stuff broke all the time, and we just started fixing it. We watched a lot of YouTube. It was really last summer, the two of us couldn’t find summer jobs, and we said, “Why don’t we fix bikes?”
So we made fliers, we got business cards. And we ran a home bike repair in the suburbia of Richmond for all of the soccer moms and people who were too intimidated to go to grungy downtown bike stores.
We weren’t trying to take business from [other shops]; we just realized we could make easy tune up repairs for half the price. And we offered free delivery and pick up which is awesome. All we did last summer was get up in the morning, fix bikes, listen to music all day, and continue to fix bikes until the sun went down. When I got back to school, people saw my Facebook or something, and started associating me fixing bikes. People always ask me about fixing bikes. I love it.
My basement is covered in bikes and grease. It’s a man cave of grease. It’s a good way to disconnect from everything.
Bikes are cool. I like bikes a lot.
CL: Your favorite band is Phish, how many times have you seen them?
SP: I’ve seen Phish 28 times over 5 years and no, it is never the same. Without Phish, I would have a lot more money, but the memories are invaluable. Most of my stories begin with a Phish show or the journey surrounding one.