Working in teams, these student news bureaus take advantage of the Indianapolis’ wealth of sports events by covering events large and small. Their work is presented on this website and made available to other news organizations for reprinting.

Check out the work of some of these bureaus:

• NCAA Final Four, men’s basketball
• Big Ten championships, men’s basketball
• Super Bowl XLVI in Indianapolis
• 2011 Indianapolis 500

Bailey and Weinfuss have participated in a number of the NSJC’s student news bureaus this year, including coverage of Super Bowl XLVI, the NCAA men’s Final Four, the Big Ten men’s and women’s basketball tournaments, and the Big Ten football championship.

“I’m excited to cover the Derby because of the tradition and prestige it holds, not just as a sporting event, but as an avenue to write great stories,” Weinfuss, who also received his undergraduate degree from IU, says. “There are so many stories to be found at the track, I’m looking forward to getting started.”

Bailey adds, “The Kentucky Derby is a fascinating intersection of sports, society and media that makes it one of the most exciting opportunities for a journalist. Interesting stories lurk behind every corner.”

The students will share their Derby experiences throughout the festivities on Twitter.

Stories from the Run for the Roses and surrounding events will be posted throughout the weekend at www.sportsjournalism.org.

Four IU journalism graduate students will cover the NCAA men’s basketball Final Four this weekend in New Orleans, reporting on games and participating in media events and press conferences.

The National Sports Journalism Center in Indianapolis, part of the IU School of Journalism, will send Zak Keefer, Josh Weinfuss, Wheat Hotchkiss and Brian Burnsed to the two semi-final games and the final championship game April 2. Adjunct lecturer Ronnie Ramos, who also is director of digital communications at the NCAA, will oversee this small news bureau.

Ramos said each will be assigned a team to cover and will write features on their respective teams throughout the weekend. They will have “unfiltered” media access before and after games, and will have the chance to interview players and coaches during media availability sessions on Friday and Sunday.

The four may attend open practices and, during games Saturday and Monday, will sit on press row with professional media. Afterward, they’ll have access to coach press conferences and locker rooms.

The four will produce stories and video clips, which will be featured on the NSJC and NCAA websites. Ramos said the work will be available as freelance material to news outlets nationwide.

The foursome will stay in New Orleans through Monday’s championship game and will return to Indianapolis on Tuesday “armed with several high-profile clips and an invaluable sports-reporting experience,” he said.

Ten graduate students at the National Sports Journalism Center have formed a news bureau to cover the Big Ten women’s and men’s basketball tournaments in Indianapolis.

Banker’s Life Fieldhouse hosts the Big Ten women’s tournament March 1 to 4 and Big Ten men’s tournament March 8 to 11. During those two weeks, the sports journalism students will interview coaches and athletes from throughout the conference, writing both feature stories and game recaps to be published on sportsjournalism.org and various newspapers.

These two events will afford students the opportunity to gain real-world journalism experience on deadline, while covering games, practices and press conferences during two of the nation’s elite college basketball events, said Pam Laucella, School of Journalism assistant professor at IUPUI and academic director of the NSJC.

Students from the center have formed news bureaus to cover the many sports events in Indianapolis, including the Super Bowl. In December, a team covered the inaugural Big Ten football championship at Lucas Oil Stadium, and the center has arranged media partnerships with MLB training and the Indianapolis 500 for students to participate in media activities.

The 2012 BCA Men’s Basketball Hiring Report Card will serve as a significant component in the evaluation of FBS/Division I institution’s search and hiring practices for head men’s basketball coaching positions for the 2012 hiring cycle. Institutions will be evaluated in four categories: Communication, Hiring/Search Committee, Candidates Interviewed, and Reasonable Time. Each category has a numerical score that will be converted into a letter grade for the final report.

BCA Executive Director, Floyd Keith stated, “The BCA is most pleased with this partnership with the Indiana University School of Journalism with regard to this process. 22.6% of the current head coaches in Division Men’s basketball are coaches of color; which represents 38% of the 61% of the black athletes on the court. The percentage of black head coaches has declined steadily since 2007 from 25% to the current 22.6%; as well as the proportionality ratio of 38% to 37%. The process is at a stalemate and we need to determine what the issue is.”

The rationale of the Hiring Report Card and the public release of the grades are to present an objective measurement that quantifies the four major categories that we believe influence the hiring process. Through this systematic evaluation, we hope to objectively increase public and institutional awareness of demonstrating a commitment to diversity and inclusion. The Men’s Basketball HRC will affirm each NCAA FBS/D-I institution’s commitment to conduct inclusive and diverse searches in all areas of the campus community.

“We are pleased to collaborate with Indiana University on the Men’s Basketball Hiring Report Card (HRC). The Black Coaches and Administrators (BCA) regard highly its charge to advocate for inclusion on all levels of sport. The number of black male D-I basketball student-athletes has steadily increased in recent years, but we have not seen the same trend in the hiring of black coaches of men’s basketball”, stated BCA President Danielle O’Banion.

O’Banion further explained, “This partnership between IU and the BCA provides an opportunity to hold institutions accountable. The impact of the HRC on search processes and hires made in football and women’s basketball are noteworthy. We fully expect the same positive impact in the search processes in men’s college basketball.”

Dr. Pamela Laucella, Assistant Professor and Academic Director for the NSJC, stated, “I’m personally committed to diversity issues through my teaching, research and service.” Laucella noted, “I seek to influence perceptions and policy through my work, so the partnership between NSJC and BCA is a natural fit. I admire the work Floyd Keith and others do at BCA and I’m a huge follower of Dr. Richard Lapchick’s pioneering work in promoting equity in sport.”

The hiring report card was initially unveiled as part of the BCA’s “Equity in Football Hirings: The Final Report” plan which resulted from the Summit I meeting in Lincoln, Nebraska during the 2002 BCA Football Classic weekend in August of 2002. The BCA annually releases Hiring Report Cards for NCAA FBS and Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) head football coach hires and NCAA FBS/Division I women’s basketball head coach hires.

ABOUT BLACK COACHES AND ADMINISTRATORS (BCA)

The Black Coaches & Administrators (BCA) is a 501 (c) (3) tax‐exempt non‐profit organization whose primary purpose is to foster the growth and development of ethnic minorities at all levels of sports both nationally and internationally. The BCA is committed to creating a positive enlightened environment where issues can be examined closely, debated sincerely and resolved honestly. The focus of the BCA involves the concerns of its colleagues in professional sports, NCAA (Division I, II, and III), NAIA (Division I and II), junior college and high school levels.

On May 31, 2007, BCA Board of Directors unveiled the new name of the organization during the 2007 BCA National Convention and Expo. The name change was made to clarify the expanding membership population of administrators and coaches within the BCA. Subsequently, BCA is now Black Coaches & Administrators.

ABOUT THE INDIANA SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM/NATIONAL SPORTS JOURNALISM CENTER (NSJC)

IU School of Journalism is 100 years old and continues its legacy of preparing leading journalists and industry professionals. The Indiana University National Sports Journalism Center is the most comprehensive institute for the study of sports journalism in America and is currently the only graduate program in sports journalism in the country. Through its academic courses and other programs, the center provides top quality and cutting‐edge instruction on sports media for everyone from high school students to veteran professionals.

The two organizations made their announcement shortly after the current athletes in the SVSP pre-combine training program wrapped up a morning training session at SportZone’s facilities.

The partnership between the two Indianapolis-based organizations will make St. Vincent Sports Performance the official performance medicine partner of USA Football and its U.S. National Team program.

“We are incredibly excited to find a world-class partner in St. Vincent Sports Performance right here in our back yard,” said Scott Hallenbeck, executive director of USA Football.

St. Vincent Sports Performance Executive Director Ralph Reiff echoed Hallenbeck’s sentiments.

“As we celebrate the sport of football with the Super Bowl coming up, we couldn’t be more proud to be closer to the game through this relationship with USA Football,” Reiff said.

The partnership will allow SVSP to expand their reach across the country through USA Football’s myriad programs. SVSP is already the official performance medicine provider for several other National Governing Bodies like USA Gymnastics, USA Track & Field, USA Diving, and USA Synchro, but this partnership marks a significant foray for SVSP into the sport of football from a national perspective. USA Football manages the U.S. National Team program and is also the official youth football development partner of the NFL.

“When we talk about reaching out into the community, this relationship with USA Football enlarges our community immensely,” Reiff said. “This relationship with USA Football immerses us into a grassroots foundation with the sport of football across the United States.”

St. Vincent Sports Performance will provide support in the form of trainers, physicians and strength coaches for USA Football at several nationwide events, the first being the International Bowl in Austin, Texas on Feb. 1. Hallenbeck described the event, which takes place on National Signing Day, as an “exciting concept” which pits some of top high school football players in America against the top high school-aged players from around the world.

Hallenbeck also expressed hope that many of USA Football’s current athletes might wind up training with SVSP’s pre-combine training program down the road. This year’s iteration of the eight-week training program is already underway. 15 athletes are participating in the comprehensive program in preparation for the NFL Draft. Five of the athletes have been invited to the NFL Combine, which will be held in Indianapolis Feb. 22-28.

Hallenbeck looked on as the athletes went through on-field skills training Tuesday morning, taking direction from several NFL veteran coaches, including two-time Super Bowl Champion linebacker Roosevelt Colvin.

Both Hallenbeck and Reiff looked forward to a long-standing mutually beneficial partnership.

“It’s a great day for USA Football and St. Vincent Sports Performance,” Hallenbeck remarked, “two great world-class organizations that are committed to making the game better.”

“We’re encouraging other students who don’t have credentials to cover events during the week, and there are many of those,” Laucella said. These events will be in the Super Bowl Village near Lucas Oil Stadium, which opens opens Jan. 27. On the schedule are parades, festivals, performances, exhibits and even a zipline between two tall downtown buildings.

Laucella said she is working with the NFL for additional access after Media Day to enable students to interview officials and organizers, but some stories won’t require anything but reporters’ curiosity and interviewing skills. For example, visitors and tourists, food vendors, local businesses or members of the Indianapolis committee who oversee the Super Bowl “experience” all have stories to tell.

One special event is open to all the students: a town hall-style meeting with veteran broadcaster Bob Costas is set for Thursday evening.

“The whole week offers great opportunities for any of our students as well as exposure for our program,” Laucella said. Student work will be featured on the NSJC website, for example, already one of the most-visited sports journalism websites in the country.

The center has sent students to many Indianapolis events, such as the Indianapolis 500, NCAA men’s and women’s basketball Final Fours, and Big Ten football championship game, where they worked as teams to generate stories, video and photos.

“We have so many opportunities in Indianapolis and often are able to include Bloomington students,” Laucella said. “We glad to be able to offer these experiences to all the students.”

King, who said he was honored by the appointment, joins an esteemed group of journalists already on the board of the nation’s most comprehensive sports media program, including ESPN the Magazine Editor-in-Chief Chad Millman, FOX broadcaster Joe Buck, CBS’s Dick Enberg, legendary Washington Post scribe Dave Kindred, ESPN vice president Vince Doria, Tim Franklin, the program’s founding director, and several more.

In many ways, King’s story mirrors that of his employer, from his humble beginnings as a general assignments reporter at the tiny Commercial-News in Danville, Ill. to his current role as one of the top decision-makers at the biggest print and digital enterprise in the sports media landscape. King is now responsible for supervision of all content at ESPN and the company’s overall editorial direction. He oversees an award-winning team of more than 400 editors, writers and designers across the behemoth that is ESPN.com, a website that typically generates around 40 million unique visitors a month.

Prior to joining ESPN, King spent 14 years working this way through the newspaper ranks. From 1997 to 2004, he held a host of positions at the Philadelphia Inquirer, serving as graphic artist, deputy sports editor, assistant managing editor and deputy managing editor.  Prior to that, King worked at the Louisville Courier-Journal as a graphic artist, director of photography and presentation editor.  From 1987 through 1992, he worked at the Courier-Post in Cherry Hill, N.J., a major suburban Philadelphia paper.  In his first job with the Commercial-News, King worked as a general assignment reporter and graphic artist.

Board members like King lend their expertise to NSJC students on a regular basis. Their involvement has has helped NSJC provide students and working professionals with an unprecedented array of education and career development tools. Other board members participate in speaking events on the Indianapolis and Bloomington campuses and facilitate internships with their organizations.

King spoke with NSJC graduate students most recently in October, offering candid thoughts on his employer, the changing sports media business and host of other topics.

Billy Corben, director of The U—an unfiltered look at the raucous, and supremely talented, University of Miami football program in the 1980’s—and Thaddeus Matula, who delved into the decades-old pay-for-play scandal at SMU in Pony Excess, discussed their respective movies and the documentary filmmaking process as a whole.  For Corben, crafting a successful documentary is quite simple: “Find a good story and don’t screw it up,” he said.

Both were colorful—and oftentimes off-color—as they walked students through the difficulties and joys inherent in crafting a documentary. Corben claims it wasn’t difficult to entice former Miami players to discuss their exploits on and off the field, while Matula claims several SMU stars of yesteryear, including Eric Dickerson, were hesitant to talk on camera. “If you want to be a filmmaker, it requires the ability to hear no and keep going,” Matula said. “It’s all about hearing ‘no, no, no, no,’ and you say, ‘yes, I’m still going to do it.’”

Corben and Matula are Miami and SMU alumni, respectively, and were thrilled to find that their movies, though tough on the schools, have bolstered football recruiting. A freshman receiver at SMU even told Matula that he opted to play for the Mustangs because he’d seen Pony Excess. The SMU coaching staff went as far as to award Matula a championship ring following the team’s win the in the 2009 Hawaii Bowl.

Miami’s former head coach, Randy Shannon, and current coach, Al Golden, have both gone out of their way to inform Corben of the positive effect his film has had on recruiting. “I wanted to movie to serve as one of those monuments they never built for the team while still being objective and unapologetic,” he says.

The event was a sponsored through a partnership between the Sport Management, Marketing and Communication program, the Department of Kinesiology, the School of Journalism, the Department of Communication and Culture, the IU Sport Marketing Alliance and the IU Sport Communication Club.

The editors — all IU alumni — warned that working for a magazine isn’t as glamorous as many imagine. “Right now it’s tough going in this industry,” said Chandra Turner, executive editor of Parents magazine. “[When I was coming out of school], I wish I would’ve known how much the industry would change in the next 15 years.”

Turner was joined on the panel by Chad Millman, editor-in-chief of ESPN The Magazine, Christine Griffin, digital director of Fitness and Colin Kearns, senior editor at Field & Stream. The panel was part of the School of Journalism’s Speaker Series, which is open to students, faculty, staff and area residents.

Each rose to prominence through a mix of talent and risk-taking. Griffin, for instance, moved to New York with no job in hand in hopes of networking her way into a full-time position. Despite interning at Sports Illustrated during the summer before his senior year, Millman, too, moved to New York armed only with a diploma and no guarantees.

For each, though, the risk paid off, as Millman returned to Sports Illustrated and Griffin parlayed freelance work into a full-time position at Cosmo Girl magazine. Though both found success, neither knows if they’d have the stomach to take such a daunting risk again. Still, the panelists encouraged each student to take a leap of faith if working for a magazine is a career goal. “You have to go where the jobs are, because that’s where the jobs are,” Millman quipped.

The editors offered advice for applying to jobs for those undaunted by the prospect of diving headlong into a job market laden with hiring freezes. Each sees countless cover letters and résumés every month and can quickly identify who stands out and who hasn’t put in the necessary effort.

“You need to write a tailored cover letter,” Turner said. “Write more about the publication. It needs to be authentic and needs to show you get it—don’t be generic.”

Though the industry has been rocked by layoffs and uncertainty in recent years, the editors maintain their jobs are still satisfying and fun, thanks to the myriad challenges they overcome daily.

“I love my job,” Millman says. “For me, when you’re putting a magazine together, you never know if it’s going to work. You plan these things weeks and months in advance, you come up with these grandiose schemes and great story ideas and fantastic photos. It’s a crapshoot, and you have no idea if the decision you made in June will come to fruition in August. What I like is the exact moment when I figure out it’s going to work out. I like it when the decisions you make are great ones and it leads to a great magazine.”