On his first day as a news designer for the San Jose Mercury News, Kevin Wendt showed up with a black eye, and a war story: The night before graduation, he’d been attacked in a bar by the ex-Student Association president, whom the Northern Star had gotten impeached.

“It was the greatest icebreaker I will ever have in any job for the rest of my life,” Kevin says. “I would tell people that story and they’d be like, ‘This guy’s hard core.'”

The Mercury News took Kevin’s ID photo that first day, and it’s still on his badge. In a newspaper world where hard-nosed reporters view designers with suspicion, the black eye revealed a kid with a passion for tough journalism.

Just as he had at the Star, Kevin rose meteorically during his first three years in San Jose. He’s now news and sports design director – unheard of for a 26-year-old.

Call it destiny or dumb luck, but the fact Kevin became a journalist at all can be traced to a chance meeting at Subway on freshman move-in day. He ran into Star sports editors Jason Schaumburg and Ryan Byrne. He and Jason had grown up together in Elgin. Even though Kevin was a chemistry major, Jason asked if he’d be interested in covering women’s soccer.

“Of course, I thought, ‘Hmmm. Women … soccer.’ So I started doing it. It was a good way to make some money. I didn’t have any when I went to college.”

Soon, he was ready to trade his test tubes for a reporter’s notebook. He didn’t have a clear idea of what he wanted to do at the paper, so he tried everything: reporting, editing, design, even photography. Plus, he could see how being a manager at the Star was preparing him for a career. Not just in learning journalism, but in learning to solve problems on deadline.

“It’s also your first glimpse into worrying about things you don’t think you should have to worry about,” he says. Like computers crashing or people needing a day off.

“People here look at our paper and say, ‘How do we get the thing out every day?’ And we used to do the same thing at the Star. It’s as real in its problems as it is in its glories. Ugh. I can’t believe I just said that.”