UVA Story

That was the first time I’ve read that story and I was hooked from start to finish. To now know that it was just false reporting and basically bad journalism is a sad case. Just reading the story and how the author put it together, the quotes, the word usage, etc. makes the author seem like a very skilled and experienced writer. I just can’t understand how he failed to fact check, run her story by other people that night, or even just use common knowledge. I thought it was very strange that everyone in the party just ignored a bruised beaten girl walking down the stairs, her friends did absolutely nothing as they saw her beaten and bloody and that her date “Drew” would just casually speak to her days after at work.

The story was so elaborate and mentioned so many people, I just don’t understand how the writer didn’t try to collaborate her story with others. For instance, he could’ve questioned the fraternity, question those at the party, question Jackie’s co workers at the pool, question her friends, question her hall mates, questions her parents, she could have along history of making up stories.

You can’t put all your eggs in one basket and here is an example of a journalist doing that by completely relying on her main, and really only, source. Just like that quote, “If your mother says she loves you check it out.” You have to check and then double check and then check again, because once you publish, there’s no taking it out of circulation.

Clark’s Advice

The story I chose was, The Official Coming-Out Party written by Kevin Arnovitz of ESPN.

Clark’s advice that pertains to this story was “reveal the traits of the character” and “work towards an ending.”

This story was very well written and thought out. I heard about this story before, but never read it. The author is able to take someone who is actually a pretty normal person and dig into their life in order to tell an amazing story. Arnovitz does an excellent job revealing the traits of Bill Kennedy, not only as a gay man, but as a NBA referee and a human being. The author mentions small details and instances that gives readers a better sense of who this guy really is. The author describes him liking karaoke and hanging out with friends and other details that make him relateable.

This story was a feature story, so the author had no other choice, but to reveal the traits of Kennedy. The story was all about him and in order for them to pull the proper reaction from readers, he had to reveal Kennedy to everyone.

Clark’s second piece of advice, “work towards an ending,” is reflected in this story as well. The story opens up and introduces Kennedy and from there his life is unraveled from a child dreaming of becoming a NBA referee to his life now after going through the Rajon Rondo situation and coming out to the world. The author did a great job using Kennedy’s personal stories, and all the details to build up to and ending that shows how this has made him into who he is today.

Things that carried him

Things That Carried Him

Paragraph 1: The opening paragraph gives a brief description of Don Collins and sets up an anecdotal scene at the burial grounds.

Paragraph 2: The second paragraph continues with the anecdotal scene at the burial grounds and it also provides background information about Don Collins and how he grew up in a funeral home. This information helps the reader feel more personally connected to the protagonist.

Paragraph 3: This paragraph also helps set the scene of the story by describing the weather. It describes how he prepares to dig the hole and then leads into him starting to dog the hole that it described in the next paragraph.

Paragraph 4: Describes the steps he takes to dig the hole and also lists some of supplies he used to give the reader a better understanding of what is needed and how much work it takes.

Paragraph 5: This paragraph gives a real life dates example of what Don Collins could experience of any day out there in the graveyard. He rests on the tombstone, observing a funeral going on. The small details lead to me that this was a scene that the author observed on his own along with Don Collins.

Paragraph 6: Describes the soldiers and the hearse at the military funeral

Paragraph 7: Continues to describe the hearse and follows it through its journey from the funeral service to the graveyard

Paragraph 8: Describes the body’s journey from the hearse to the vault that was built specifically for Iraq soldiers. Also gives a little background information on the on Iraq, at the time.

Paragraph 9: The story then goes into the start of the burial ceremony. Describing the music being played in the background and a train passing by

Paragraph 10: Background info on proper military burial procedures and gives some perspectives on the soldiers’ role

Paragraph 11: Introduces readers to the character of Leatherbee and some brief history on buglers like him

Paragraph 12: Continues with Leatherbee and touches on the song he was playing at the military funeral. The author continues to give background info and history of buglers and uses music terminology to better set the scene.

Paragraph 13: The author uses his first direct quote, taken from Leatherbee describing his back and forth emotions during the ceremony

Paragraph 14: The author uses a quote from Sergeant Chris Bastille, who gives shares his experiences with military memorials.

Paragraph 15: Huber says, “He had a few kids.”

Paragraph 16: How the soldiers fold the flag during the ceremony and a quote from Dawson

Paragraph 17: The author writes about the flag folds and the sea shells that are folded inside

Paragraph 18: The flag was folded and handed to wife?

Paragraph 19: The Army’s Chief of Staff attends every funeral of a Iraq/Afghanistan soldier and is quoted that she does not like to keep count.

Paragraph 20: Missie, the soldiers wife, is trying to keep her composure at the funeral

Paragraph 21: Quotes from Pinckney about how emotional and difficult these funerals are

Paragraph 22: The history of the 13 folds

Paragraph 23: What Pickney recited to Missie as he hands her the flag

Paragraph 24: The end of the ceremony and everyone’s departure

Paragraph 25: Back to Don Collins and the burial site. The name on the tombstone

Paragraph 26: Gail Bond losing her son Joey

Paragraph 27: Background information about Gail and how she is grieving

Paragraph 28: Gail and all the deaths she has experienced from people close to her

Paragraph 29: Joe’s family and loved ones that were at the funeral

Paragraph 30: Others that attended the funeral and why

Paragraph 31: Why Joey was so loved

Paragraph 32: Perspectives of troopers that led the funeral

Paragraph 33: The long procession line

Paragraph 34: Patriot Guard Rider Tim Barclay gives his experience

Paragraph 35: Background info on The Patriot Guard

Paragraph 36: Connecting the Barclay Brothers, Don Collins and Missie

Paragraph 37: Gail and her brother Bill driving to the funeral trying to control their emotions

Paragraph 38: Vicki gives quote about people crying for you

Story Interviews

Greenforest’s athletic staff

Edward Ravenal- men’s assistant coach & director of team development

Larry Thompson- men’s head basketball coach

Valerie White- athletic director

Georgia’s former and current Nigerian players:

Big O- African native, former men’s basketball player

Derek Ogbeide- Nigerian native, men’s basketball player

Greenforest current & former basketball players:

Fernando

Other resources:

UGA’s African Student Organization

I need to find students, athletes and more importantly a high school that implement these same type of recruiting methods. I would like to keep my focus on African basketball players just so I have a clear focus. Fortunately, there are many African natives that have moved to metro Atlanta and all around the country, so it shouldn’t be too hard. The question I want to answer is whether this is a anomaly or something that is common at private high schools that don’t have government and county officials looking over their shoulders.

High School football coaches:

Deion Williams- SWD DB’s coach

Fletcher Salter- SWD Head’s coach

I need to interview actual high school players that have transferred or players that have gotten their spots taken by transfers. I think their interviews will be the core of the story because it’s firsthand experience that I can’t get from any other source.

Potential Records for Stories

Potential records for individual story:

Team present rosters
Team past rosters
Data on foreign athletes playing for Division 1
Data that could show patterns between athlete’s nationalities and the sport they play

The records that would answer some of the key questions about recruiting patterns would mostly consist of team rosters and maybe some data over years. I think this information would be fairly easy to gain access to. I could look on school websites and get a roster for every single team. Usually online team rosters have it set up where you can click the player’s name and read their bios that state where that player is from. Although this would be tedious and time consuming work, it’s fairly easy that involves little effort outside of open my laptop. Getting data on past recruiting habits, however, may be a little more difficult to find. But I’m sure the NCAA’s website or some other record keeping site would have some of this information.

Potential records for team story:

Rosters of teams
Transfer roster
Data that shows the percentage of football transfers a particular county gets a year
- Or going deeper to how many transfer a school receives a year
Percentage of these transfers that have made it to D1 colleges

The records that would answer key questions for the team story will be more difficult to find than those for my individual story simply because high school records are hard to get a hold of. Jordan has done a great job of compiling a list of local transfers that will be great for contacting sources. Finding the data and percentages will just take patient work, but once the information is compiled and organized, it could present some interesting facts.

Jenkins v. NCAA

Summary:
- Martin Jenkins, Kevin Perry and William Tyndall are suing the NCAA and it’s conferences based on the claim that college athletes are being exploited and not compensated for the amount of money they’re bringing to the school and athletic program. They are not seeking damages, but rather an injunction that would allow a free market for college athletes to get paid. The plaintiffs’ argument is that these young athletes are bringing in so much revenue for their schools, but are not receiving any of it. In other words, Jenkins is suing the NCAA for exploiting athletes. One very important point that these plaintiffs made was that one of the vital reasons the NCAA is working to keep amateurism is because the amounts of money that they would have to hand over to a student who’s only 18, 19, 20 years old. But no matter how much, it was still that player or those players’ who generated it.

Potential Story Ideas:
- A story about how college sports would be if athletes were getting paid
  - Would they stay in college longer? Draining talent in the NFL
  - How would you decide who gets paid and how much?
  - Would it kill the nature of college sports?
  - How would college students spend that amount of money?
  - Would they still get full athletic scholarships?
  - May create tension on a team if player(s) feel they aren’t being paid enough or if they feel as if their teammate is being paid too much
- A story about why college amateurism is important for student athletes
- Another good story idea would be to hypothetically estimate how much college athletes would get if they were allowed to receive compensation
  - Ex: If college athletes could get paid, Nick Chubb would be making ______ a week.
  - It would take a lot of extensive research and data collection
  - A good way to measure one players’ worth vs. another

Open Records Act

I believe the new law is very fair to journalists, records requestors and the public’s interest because it’s making everything transparent and honest. I think the Fetty Wap and Ludacris situations brought much light to the concerns of Georgia’s Open Records Act. Now the University, at least in my opinion, looks crooked and sloppy. They allowed a celebrity to push them around and then not even delivered what was promised. Now the public can be more aware of what takes place behind the scenes and find out information that has been looked over or forgotten. Administrations such as UGA Athletics may not think they act is fair because they are now being exposed. But this will make them think twice before they allow a 2^nd rate celebrity take advantage of them and take their money.

Revised Story Memo

Key Questions:

What kind of international connections NCAA coaches have and how they get them?
How athletes from other countries are a(n) advantage/disadvantage for sports teams?
Why do athletes from X seem to be more favorable for a particular sport?
How NCAA athletes and coaches would compare American competitive sports to those of another country?
What are some correlations between particular countries and a sport? (e.g. Nigerians and basketball)
Does the move to America give international athletes a better/worst chance at going pro in that particular sport?
How do foreign athletes looking to come to the states reach out to NCAA teams and schools?

Basic Structure:

I want my story to focus more on the trends of international recruiting and which patterns exist in which sport. I don’t want the story to go much into what these athletes go through, but more so on what advantages they have in particular sports and why. Also, how coaches find these athletes and recruit them.

Complementary Elements

I really want to create a graph, chart or sometime of infographic. Depending on my findings, I have the chance to gather a lot of information and data that may get confusing to my audience if I describe it in words.
Another idea would be to create some sort of graphic that would pull data from X amount years ago and see how long these patterns and trends have been going on. For instance, if UCLA’s basketball team has been recruiting athletes from the same country for 20 years, it could be interesting results to report.

2016 NBA Finals: Why Atlanta was swept

I chose to show statistical evidence of why the Atlanta Hawks were swept by the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2016 NBA Finals. Each graph represents a game in the series and the last one demonstrate each teams total in the series.

In every game, besides Game 4, the Cavs managed to shoot and hit more field goals than Atlanta. In fact, the Hawks only consistently beat Cleveland in team fouls and turnovers. Cleveland also constantly out-rebounded them on offense and defense. The Cavs had a pretty monstrous game in the paint which may have been the cause of Atlanta’s struggle to rebound the ball. In Game 2, the Hawks also turned the ball over twice as much as Cleveland.

As for the overall series, Cleveland scored 30 more 3-pointers (90 more points) that Atlanta. This could be because of the works from Kevin Love, J.R. Smith and Shannon Frye, notorious for their 3-point shooting ability. The Cavs also collected almost 20 more offensive rebounds than the Hawks, giving them more possessions and opportunities for second chance points.

Each teams’ averages seem to be pretty standard, for example, the Hawks scored in the range of 9-16 three pointers in the series. Neither team had a night where the stats were just off the charts, or unusually different. This to me shows that the Cleveland Cavaliers are just an all around better team than the Hawks. They didn’t allow the Hawks to throw them off their game, while at the same time they didn’t allow Atlanta any wiggle room to dominate.

Infographics: Teddy Bridgewater

I found a story about Teddy Bridgewater and the Minnesota Vikings on FiveThirtyEight.com. The story uses a lot of visually pleasing graphics and data tables to tell the story of how the Vikings are now in “quarterback hell.” Bridgewater injured his knee last Tuesday and will be out for the rest of the season. They added a table that compared Bridgewater’s 2015 season to some of the greatest seasons that other QB’s have had in the past 40 years. The author mentioned, “One way of measuring a young quarterback’s promise is to find historical passers who produced similar statistics at the same age, and track how those players’ careers ended up panning out.”

A timeline was included that showed past Viking’s quarterbacks and how their seasons panned out. The highest points on the graph represent high wins and the teams success. And the low points on the graph and usually closely followed by another name, meaning their were replaced. Bridgewater had a promising future with the Vikings and the visual data in this story gives readers concrete evidence of this.

This infographic story measures up to the standards of Tufte and basic design principles. The charts made intelligent and appropriate comparisons between Bridgewater and past QB’s. The data tables were clear and easy to read. The color pallet of the line graph made distinctions between different players and the labels show when each started as QB. The graphs did not contain jargon or cram a bunch of information. And most importantly, the graphs integrated evidence to back up the main point of the article