Rachel Alexander
Rachel Alexander came to the Post in the summer of 1996 to cover the
Washington Capitals. She had previously worked at the Fort Lauderdale
Sun-Sentinel, where she covered the University of Miami Hurricanes and wrote
the television/radio column. While in South Florida, she also wrote on the
Miami Dolphins, the Florida Panthers, tennis and PGA events.
After the Hurricanes gig, she is just happy to be covering a beat
that won't involve so many trips to the county courthouse. Actually,
covering the Hurricanes taught Alexander that you can never categorize an
entire group of people as lawbreakers or angels or playoff chokers. Writing
Panthers stories during the Stanley Cup playoffs taught her about overtime
hockey games. Both of these lessons should be helpful when covering the
Capitals.
A local, Alexander grew up in Potomac, Md., where she attended
Churchill High School. Like several other members of the Washington Post
sports staff, she went on to Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., or
as Big Ten types call it, "football powerhouse Northwestern University."
There she learned about journalism, adult responsibility and how many layers
of Gortex are required for a garment to officially be called a parka. Moving
to Florida from Evanston was not a difficult decision.
In her college summers, Alexander interned for several newspapers,
including USA Today, the Chicago Sun-Times and The Washigton Post. In the
future she hopes to learn enough of the Slovak language to understand the
jokes Peter Bondra cracks on the ice to linemate Michal Pivonka. She also
hopes to learn enough of the Canadian language to derive the original source
of every goaltender's favorite expression: "it was amazing -- he just stood
on his head."
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