This project has been an absolutely amazing experience for me. I loved having the opportunity to get to know these athletes and learn about their accomplishments. I tried to stay professional as possible and go through the Sport Information Director when it came time to interview the athletes. When i first started interviewing the athletes, I was a little nervous and not sure how I was going to go about writing the stories. After about the third interview I was far more comfortable. I also got very efficient at writing the stories. I tried to keep a consistant flow to them.
For this project i had several goals. First off, I wanted to do a post every week. I believe I came up one short on that. I was unable to find anyone to interview during finals week. Even though I came up one short I am still happy with the number of athletes that I was able to interview. With everyone, including myself, going crazy with final projects and such I knew it would be very difficult to do one more story. The final story I posted, on Kate Conard, was the one for last week.
The opportunity to create my own project was both a challenge and a blessing. The biggest challenge at first was deciding on a a project that; one, I would enjoy doing and two, would make me look more “marketable” to any potential employers. I got two great reviews from the people I asked to review my project, which leads me to believe this project was a success. All of the hard work and frustration that I face along the way was all worth it after reading those reviews.
Thank you so much Professor Lerner for such a great semester. I hope you enjoy my project
I just posted my first story in a couple weeks. This weeks story was on sophomore Mackenzie Stephens of the volleyball team. Last week I wanted to write a story about Jake Berry, an outfielder for the baseball team. Unfortunately the SID was never able to get me an interview with him. I tried to send him some questions for him to answer but never heard back from him. I guess my goal of a story a week is now in jeopardy. I really hope I can still write the story on Jake next week. That means I will hopefully be writing 2 stories the next two weeks to make up for the certain difficulties and not being able to interview an athlete the week of thanksgiving break.
I am really enjoying working on this project and getting to know more about these Marist athletes. In a way it has increased my school spirit. My goal is to still get a member of the swim team, men’s basketball team, men’s soccer team, and possible the women’s lacrosse team, and maybe a member of one of the crew team. I am in fact enjoying this project so much that I might try and continue it after this semester is over. I think this project has made me a stronger writer and even better socially. I am more comfortable speaking with strangers now, something that I am sure will be very helpful once I graduate.
So I have finally finished the story on Women’s soccer star Amanda Epstein. The sports information office was very helpful in getting the necessary information I needed for this story. I was even able to get an excellant quote from the coach. Im hoping that the sports information will continue to be so helpful in getting interviews scheduled and quotes from the coaches.
I have decided that from now on Im going to doing the storys boy, girl, boy, girls etc. and im also going to do an athlete from the fall one week and one from the spring the next week and so forth and so on. Therefore I have decided to do my next story hopefully on Men Lacrosse star Conner Rice. After that I am hoping to get one of the women’s basketball players just in time for the season opener, preferably a senior.
I so far still have had no luck in getting my blog to be linked to the Sports Communication. I emailed Dr. Strudler last week and still have yet to hear back from him, not that thats a surprise at all. I am going to try and stop by his office sometime this week to talk to him.
I was finally able to finish up the second post for my Marist Athlete of the Week blog. These stories are taking me longer then i had originally expected them to take. I am writing these very carefully and making sure I have all the facts right. If i am able to for each Athlete I am interviewing a close friend of theirs and/or a teammate of theirs. I am trying to make these stories as well written as I possibly can.
I am still in the process of trying to get the Center for Sports Communication to put these stories on their website, but so far I have had no luck. I did however get permission from the Sports Information Office to use the head shots that are on their website. This is very useful so i would not have to ask the athletes for a picture. I can just take the headshot of the athlete off of the Marist athletics website.
I am still hoping to achieve my goal of a post per week. It does depend however on how quickly I am able to contact these athletes for an interview. The first two athletes that i interviewed were friends of mine. I figured it was a good way to “get my feet wet” before i moved on to other athletes. I think it would be easier to go through the different sports information directors to get in touch with these athletes. I have been interning for the Sports Information office the both this and last semester and they have said they would be willing to help put me in touch with any athletes. I do feel like the hardest part would be to get in touch with teammates to get quotes about the athletes I am interviewing.
I was finally able to get the first feature story up. This weeks featured was Chris Katerianakis, a senior defensive lineman for the football team. Hopefully I will be doing the next interview tomorrow and get the second story up by Thursday. If you wish to read the story and comment on it the links is:
http://maristathleteoftheweek.wordpress.com/2012/10/08/chris-katerianakis/
Personal:
- Where are you from?
- What other sports did you play in high school?
- Any siblings?
- What attracted you to your sport(s)?
- Why did you choose Marist?
- What was it like for you growing up?
- What is your major? And what do you want to do after your graduate?
- What is your favorite sports team? Least favorite?
In Game:
- What is going through your mind as your sitting in the locker room waiting to go out to the field, court, pool, track etc.?
- How do you mentally prepare yourself for a game?
- How close are you with the rest of your teammates?
- How has your coach(s) help you develop as a player?
- After a game in which you played poorly, how do you go about dealing with that and preparing for the next game?
- As an upperclassmen how much do the younger players look up to you? (only upperclassmen)
- As one of the younger, more inexperienced players on the team how do you go about adjusting to the college level? (underclassmen only)
- (If player is a team captain only.) As a team captain how much more pressure is put on you to perform well, and how do you go about encouraging your teammates?
Off the field:
- How do you balance your schoolwork load with practices and games?
- What are some other hobbies you have outside of your sport?
- What aspect of the Marist community is your favorite?
- If there any athlete at the professional level that you look up to as a player?
- Outside of sports who is that one person you really look up to? (Family or friend)
I am open to any more suggestions. What do you want to know about the athlete here at Marist
For my capping project many different ideas have been popping in to my head. My original idea was creating a smart phone App for the Marist Athletics department, however i quickly gave that up after realizing that it would be far beyond my skill set. Another idea i had was the idea of doing a blog specific to a single team at Marist, most likely the football team. The only problem with this idea is that I am having trouble thinking of a way to make it different than the rest of the blogs out there. I was told by some high up at ESPN that when looking for new employees, they like to see people that have done creative things, things that havn’t been done before. Whatever this capping project end up being i was it to be a least partially original. I don’t want it to be the standard blog about a sports team. I really hope to have a good topic within the next week.
I am open to any suggestions
