I’ve done three formal and one informal interview thus far. Two with triathletes at Cornell, one with a cross country coach at Cornell, and the informal with an NCAA triathlon coach at West Alabama. As discussed in our meeting, I’m struggling with this as I don’t feel there is a story so much there. To find a story, I think I really need to talk to organizers in the NCAA and at USAT to find the true purpose of NCAA triathlon, although I can assume the goal of it is to enhance the talent development pipeline. I need to also talk to both athletes and coaches.
While I have not come to the complete decision, I am more leaning towards writing about how talent identification is shifting from high school to club sports. This would include talking to college coaches about recruiting, club coaches, club athletes, high school coaches and high school administrators.
If I were to pursue this story, I would compare two sports, say cross country and soccer, where cross country recruiting is done via high school and soccer is focused on club. I would prefer to avoid UGA coaches due to a conflict of interest, so I would shift my focus towards Georgia State and interview Coach Chris England, the cross country head coach, and Coach Brett Surrency, the men’s soccer head coach. Ideally, I could talk to athletes on both of those teams, but I am less picky about who there. As far as high school coaches go, I would shift my focus towards McIntosh High School in Peachtree City because they have had great success in both cross country and soccer over the last decade. I would like to talk to their athletic director, Ms. Stacey Smith, cross country coach Jason Newton and soccer coach Bunky Colvin along with some of their top senior athletes.