Meet The Star’s new coverage team for Mizzou Tigers athletics

The Star has hired two full-time beat writers to cover athletics at the University of Missouri.

Officially starting Monday are Aaron Reiss and Alex Schiffer.

Both are recent Mizzou products with degrees in journalism and an insider’s view of goings-on around the Tigers’ athletic department.

“We’re very excited to bring Alex and Aaron aboard,” said Star sports editor Jeff Rosen. “They’re going to fit right in with our lineup of reporters and columnists and deliver Mizzou fans a whole new level of coverage of men’s basketball, football and everything in between.”

A native of Houston, Reiss also earned a minor in sociology from MU. He spent this summer as an intern at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, and previously completed internships at the Houston Chronicle and Colorado Springs Gazette. He graduated in May.

At MU, Reiss worked for the Columbia Missourian, where he placed in the Top 10 in four categories in the Associated Press Sports Editors contest: projects, game story, column writing and beat writing, the last of which came after covering the Missouri football team’s 2015 season that included the football players’ boycott and head coach Gary Pinkel’s retirement.

Schiffer is a New Jersey native who also graduated from MU in May. His internships included stints in the business departments of The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times. He also interned at The Star Ledger in Newark, N.J., where he covered the New York Mets, New York Yankees, NBA Draft and New York Giants.

While in college, Schiffer worked for PowerMizzou.com and the Columbia Missourian, where he covered Missouri athletics and high school sports.

Both men will make their homes in Columbia.

This story was originally published September 29, 2017 at 11:42 AM with the headline "Meet The Star’s new coverage team for Mizzou Tigers athletics."