Yingling is the assistant director of athletics public relations for the many sports teams of the Richmond Spiders at the University of Richmond in Richmond, Virginia. She is the primary contact for women’s lacrosse, swimming and diving, men’s and women’s cross country, and track and field teams. She also acts as the secondary contact for the football team.

Yingling has served her position for the Richmond Spiders since January 2023 and submitted her portfolio from the 2023-24 school year to College Sports Communicators to support her nomination to the photographer of the year contest.

“The success that I’ve seen with the teams that I work with has been unimaginable,” Yingling said.

She added that she travels with the team, eats with the team, and hopes to share in their successes as they work together.

Yingling’s successes alone are rather impressive. She never took a professional photography course and she taught herself through years of taking action-packed shots for IUP and many other teams.

She worked as a social media manager and communications assistant at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Yingling earned a bachelor’s degree from IUP in 2021 and her master’s in 2023.

After she earned her bachelor’s in 2021, she interned in social media marketing for the Tri-City Chili Peppers baseball team of Colonial Heights, Va. Yingling managed the team’s TikTok account during her summer internship.

She said that her boss from this social media internship had connections to the Richmond Spiders teams and made it possible for her to get recruited to her current PR position.

She credits her Mifflin County High School literature teacher, Mrs. Love, for being the first person to hand her a camera. Yingling also found inspiration from the lengthy period she had to think about her career during the COVID pandemic.

“I found myself with a lot of free time and found a deeper passion in sports,” Yingling said.

Following her revelation, she moved on from her study of political science at IUP to pursue a career in sports photography that has paid off ten times over.

Yingling had years of inspiration and inspirational people to get her to where she is today. She said that her mother “always had a camera in her hands at games.”

“It just wasn’t handed to me,” Yingling said. She worked hard and learned harder from people like her grandfather who taught her that she could do anything she wanted to as a woman in sports.

Her time as a student-athlete also shaped her discipline on the field as a player and as a photographer.

Yingling continues this path of learning, pivoting, and succeeding in her career and will undoubtedly continue to share her wins with the team she not only works with but wholeheartedly loves.

She shared advice to the recent high school graduates who are in the shoes she once filled as a student who was unknowingly on the path to a lifetime of achievements.

“Go to your media teachers and sports teams and ask what they need,” Yingling said. “It’s never too soon to start making connections.”

She added, “Go into college with your head held high and say ‘I am going to walk out with something positive.’ ”

Yingling’s story will hopefully reach the eyes and ears of budding sports photographers who need a small push to get out there and make things happen. Find your path and find it again; she can do it and so can you.