Written by Doug Goodnough
Elisabeth Meinecke, ’07, has always had a love of sports. Her parents thought enrolling her in dance classes as a child would help give her the coordination needed to be an athlete.
They were wrong.
“That is one of my tragedies in my life—I have no athletic ability,” said Meinecke, tongue in cheek, about her Hillsdale College athletic career, which consisted of one intramural flag football game. “But I love sports so much.”
Although Meinecke couldn’t compete on the playing field, she could do the next best thing: write about those who do. For the past 10 years, she has been the senior editor/producer of Cardinals Magazine, which is the multimedia news site of the St. Louis Cardinals. Now working for her hometown baseball team, she said being able to tell the stories of the Cardinals both on and off the field has been a thrill.
“To be able to work for this organization really feels like a dream come true,” Meinecke said of her role with the Major League Baseball organization. “I’m passionate about showing fans a side of these athletes that allows them to be more relatable.”
However, her career path to the Cardinals was a winding one. And initially, it did not involve athletics.
Entering Hillsdale as an English major, she was getting a cup of coffee on campus when someone approached her from the student newspaper and asked her if she would be interested in covering the football team. Meinecke said yes but eventually started her journalism career writing about track and field and cross country. Eventually, she became editor of The Collegian and graduated from the Dow Journalism Program.
“That was a really good grounding in what I would call not just the ethics of journalism, but the nuts and bolts of this profession,” Meinecke said of her Hillsdale education.
After graduation, sportswriting jobs were scarce, so she moved into the arena of political journalism, accepting a position as news producer/reporter for Human Events in Washington, D.C.
“You have to go when opportunity arises, especially when you are first starting out,” Meinecke said. “I credit Hillsdale for allowing me to get my foot in the door in D.C.”
Calling it a “baptism by fire” experience, she said she had the opportunity to cover and interview high-level political figures like Mitt Romney. Eventually, she was named managing editor at Townhall Magazine and said working with well-known journalists such as Katie Pavlich and Guy Benson allowed her to develop the “sticktoitiveness” that she uses today.
Despite working full time in political circles, Meinecke was still able to take on some freelance sportswriting assignments in D.C. for a sports blog that covered the NHL’s Washington Capitals.
“My day job was in the political world, then in the evenings, I would go cover the hockey game,” Meinecke said of her freelance career. I established relationships with a few people in the hockey community and was able to start learning what it’s like to cover a professional sports team.”
In 2014, she decided to leave D.C. and return to her home state of Missouri to pursue her sportswriting career. She covered the St. Louis Blues, the NFL’s St. Louis Rams, and University of Missouri athletics for Fox Sports Midwest’s online site. She occasionally had a chance to serve as a sideline reporter during televised games.
“That was a really fun experience,” Meinecke said. “I never forgot the interview we did on the field afterwards. ESPN ended up taking it and putting some of it on SportsCenter. And the way they [edited] it, the first word out of my mouth was ‘Um.’”
However, in 2015, the St. Louis Cardinals offered her the opportunity to work for their print publication, Cardinals Magazine, which came out six times a year. Meinecke had a chance to cover her hometown baseball team full time, telling the stories of the current players, prospects, and some of the greats of the past.
One of her favorite experiences was meeting Cardinals pitching great and Hall-of-Famer Bob Gibson.
“It’s 2017 and I walk up and say, ‘Hi, Mr. Gibson, I’m Elisabeth Meinecke with the Cardinals,’” she said. “He just repeats back to me, ‘Elisabeth Meinecke with the Cardinals.’ And I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, I’ve never felt so legitimized to work here.’ I really felt like I was truly part of the Cardinals.”
Since that time, she has built relationships with many current and former players. She said former star pitchers Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright stand out, and she remembers highlighting Wainwright’s budding singing career by organizing a “carpool karaoke” style video segment with him.
“That was hilarious,” she said of the piece. “We want fans to feel like they know these players outside of just their performance on the field. They are human beings.”
Connecting the fans with the team is her main objective. Occasionally getting to travel with the team, she said she appreciates the grind that players, coaches, and staff experience through a grueling schedule.
“You gain even more respect for these athletes being able to perform on the field with the intense travel, because it is such a long season, and there are so many games,” Meinecke said. “You’re not in your comforting environment. You’re in a hotel room.”
She is also grateful to Hillsdale for her college experience and journalism career.
“My time there was absolutely wonderful,” said Meinecke, who was a member of the Pi Beta Phi sorority and the Tower Dancers while on campus. “I feel like so many times in education, you’re told what to think, not how to think. Being taught how to think versus being taught what to think, to me, is a big difference.”
Doug Goodnough, ’90, is Hillsdale’s senior director of Alumni Marketing. He enjoys connecting with fellow alumni in new and wonderful ways.
Published in October 2025
