High school students meet sports legends, writers during week of hands-on practice
High school students have interviewed Big Ten athletes, participated in a press conference with a football pioneer and met with an Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame sports writer, all while staying on IU’s campus this week.
These students are a part of the sports journalism converged newsroom at the High School Journalism Institute. Converged newsroom courses operate as a publication or a media outlet, and students work on deadlines as if they were professional journalists.
J.D. Arland from Carmel, Indiana, said the opportunity to sharpen his journalistic skills in a real world setting has reassured him that he can succeed in the professional world.
“I just got off the phone with an IU tennis player for a story I’m working on,” he said. “Little things like that — talking to Big Ten athletes instead of ones from my high school — make me feel like I’m really a reporter.”
High school students from around the country have traveled to IU every summer for 69 years to polish their journalism skills at HSJI. The first week of the institute uses traditional teaching methods and focuses on basic reporting skills, while the second week is devoted to experiential learning. In addition to sports journalism, second week sessions include documentary filmmaking, broadcast television, and arts and entertainment journalism.
The week also has a theme, and this year’s theme is centered on heroes. Focusing on heroes will be particularly easy for the sports journalism class, according to HSJI director Teresa White.
“The ‘heroes’ theme is going to give the students a lot of great opportunities to speak with icons in the sports world,” she said. “These are opportunities they may not have at their high schools or in their hometowns.”
One of those heroes is George Taliaferro, a former IU football star and first black NFL player. Students interviewed him during a mock press conference Tuesday evening at Ernie Pyle Hall.
Taliaferro spoke to students about his experiences at IU and the NFL, and his personal life. For many students in the class, this discussion was the highlight of their week at the institute.
“Talking to George has been my favorite thing so far,” said Matthew Hosler, a student from Plainfield, Illinois. “Not only talking about sports, but also getting to hear his personal story, was really interesting.”
Dean Hume, journalism instructor at Lakota East High School in Liberty, Ohio, and advisor for the sports newsroom, said that seeing the students interact with Taliaferro has been his favorite part of the week as well.
“It was like watching a kid in a candy store,” he said. “The kids were comparing notes on football players with George, and everyone involved was so excited. They were really getting to interact with living history by talking with him.”
Later in the week, sports journalism students heard from Bob Hammel, former sports editor for the Herald-Times in Bloomington who is a member of the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame and the U.S. Basketball Writers Association Hall of Fame. In his career, Hammel won the Indiana Sportswriter of Year award 17 times. He offered insight about what it was like to cover the Bob Knight basketball era, and IU football’s first and only trip to the Rose Bowl in 1968.
In addition to speaking with sports icons like Taliaferro and Hammel, students have become heroes themselves, White said, by meeting hard deadlines and following difficult stories.
“This week I’m really trying to achieve a comfort zone push with the kids,” Hume said. “I told them they are going to be freaked out and stressed out, but once they achieve something they thought they couldn’t, they will fell invincible and never want to go back.”
Hosler said pushing himself and honing reporting skills at the institute will give him an advantage in the sports journalism profession.
“I really want to be a sports journalist and will do whatever it takes to make it happen,” he said. “I think HSJI is the best way for me to get an edge on other students and get me closer to achieving my goal.”
Developing portfolios and expanding skill sets are not the only ways students are planning for the future during the institute. Members of the sports journalism class have been exploring campus and making connections to keep open the option of attending IU.
“If I come to IU, my first year will be the first year the Cuban Center will be open, which is awesome,” Arland said. “Staying on campus and taking classes has assured me that I want to go here even more than my campus visit did.”
While students in the sport journalism class have enjoyed access to Big Ten athletes, talking sports with iconic athletes and writers, and putting their skills to practice, they said the memories of the people they have met will be what they take home with them.
“This week I’ve learned that sports writing isn’t really about sports,” Hosler said. “It’s about the people who play the sports and telling their stories.”