Whether you like it not, you probably know our Campus Celebrity Matt Hines. This athletic junior here at SSU grew up in Walnut Creek and has had a very involved career here at SSU. In fact, you could say that he has made quite a reputation for himself.
“I would say I’m more notorious these days than famous,” said Hines. “One minute I’ll be a campus hero, and the next I’ll be a villain. I tend to just be myself and not worry about what others think about me.”
Hines is well known for some of his articles that appear in the school newspaper The Star. Throughout his time writing for the publication, some of the stories that he picks up end up being the talk of the campus.
“I feel like a lot of my writing gets misinterpreted,” said Hines. “We’re a society that tends to focus on negatives and the negatives just drown out so much of my non-editorial work. The majority of my pieces are on sports. When I do roast things around campus, the purpose is to bring about positive change.”
Hines himself played on the Lacrosse team as a freshman and he even held a position as the sports media director for the lacrosse team this year.
“I love SSU sports,” said Hines. “These kids are Division two athletes who are here because they love it and because sports are who they are. Most of my pieces are very positive but I feel like the minute I criticize something people just blow up over it.“
Hines pieces seem to always have comments, both positive and negative, especially when they have a little more controversial angle.
“If you make a mistake you might get criticized for it,” said Hines. “I make mistakes all the time. Criticism can be constructive or destructive. When people comment on my pieces questioning my mental capacity or abilities, I just ignore it. However, sometimes people will take specific examples of things that I’ve done wrong and other ways I could have gone about my work. Such critique can be beneficial, though hard to swallow. Some things you just have to take with a grain of salt.”
Hines Star pieces also got him involved in a project that the whole campus was buzzing about last spring: Rodney the Rooster. This rooster was made into an unofficial campus mascot last spring. Rodney was known for walking around campus and often time’s students would post pictures of him. There was even a Facebook page created for him.
“I noticed the rooster on campus, I thought it’d be a cool story,” said Hines. “Then one day my editor with the Star pitched me the story and I said yes. It sounded interesting, ended up getting some good quotes on it and it went viral.”
After the Star article, Hines was looked to as the go-to-person for more information and the whereabouts of the rooster.
“My phone blew up after the article,” said Hines. “My friends were all, ‘Did you see this? Did you see that?’ So I just used my phone to make videos, went onto iMovie and put some clips together, it was almost like a fad or a craze.”
After the unfortunate disappearance of the rooster, Hines helped to lead the search for him and ultimately discovered the dead carcass. With this discovery, he was one of the main faces of the funeral activities, including creating Rodney bracelets and donating the proceeds to a local charity.
“I spent a whole week putting the funeral together, “ said Hines. “Over spring break I had some extra time so one thing lead to another. We raised a good amount of money through the bracelets and donoations from the community and sent it to Animal Rescue Foundation.”
Aside from reporting for the Star, Hines has also been the Residential Student Association Vice President and even a founding father of the Alpha Sigma Phi fraternity on campus. After a couple of semesters in Greek Life however, Hines decided it wasn’t the place for him.
“The Greek model itself is not bad,” said Hines. “But the way students here treat it, I just felt it just wasn’t for me.”
Now students here at SSU think the infamous @SSUGuyProbs Twitter account is run by Hines. This account has become known around campus for calling out any and everyone in a sorority or fraternity. While most of the comments are looked at as harmless and funny, some have felt that the comments have a crossed a line. The tweets have even revealed some pretty intimate information about SSU students that perhaps should have been kept private.
“My thing with that is if you’re going to criticize people and name names you need to come out yourself so that way you have credibility. It’s like talking behind someone’s back, you need to put your name out there and let people retaliate against you. Plus, that’s usually the funniest part.”
While Hines claims to not be the @SSUGuyProbs, he still gets in a little hot water every now and then for the written pieces he does sign his name to.
“I criticize things when they need to be criticized. To be honest, I more so just speak the truth,” said Hines. “I speak what’s on my mind and I speak what I think as long as it’s based on fact. I don’t go out and personally attack people for no reason. If you do me wrong I’m going to say something about it. If I won’t say it to your face I won’t put it in print, that’s not fair.”