My first story idea for my individual project would be international/foreign athletes during the Holidays. I think it would be a very timely story considering the Holidays are coming up. It is also something that I have had my own personal interest in. Even though I work for the WBB team, I’m only an hour away from home so I can always see my family for the holidays. I always felt a bit of sympathy for athletes who aren’t able to travel back to their countries to celebrate with their families. Since I would be dealing with international students this would be a great opportunity to bring notice to foreign holidays, ones that aren’t popular in the U.S. I even thought of a neat title: “Not Home for the Holidays.” I would want my story to show how these athletes sacrifice a lot, including time with their family during special occasions. This is one of my top 2 favorite story ideas.
To accompany my holiday story, my other top idea was doing a story about their stories. I was thinking of focusing on about 1-2 athletes or taking examples from many. The story would go through how they ended up in the U.S. and will show my readers just how the international recruiting process works. Everything from the time the athlete considered leaving home and coming to the states, when they first began being recruited by an American coach, the difference between competition in their home country and here, how their experiences was when they first got here, etc. This story seems like something that may get pretty lengthy so I was leaning towards focusing it on one person after hearing many stories, just picking out the best one and developing it to a print story.
Now for the others…
I considered doing a story about the different training procedures and tactics. This would be basically comparing the level of difficulty and amount of time dedication in each country. I have my reservations about this idea. One, it seems a little boring unless I get hold off someone who just has an amazing story about how training in the U.S. is extremely tough or extremely easy. Secondly, I feel like every athlete will say training in the U.S. is harder because why else would they have come to the states. I feel that usually international athletes come here to be better and face better competition and with that comes harder training. And finally, I don’t want to use an American athletic trainer as a source unless I am able to use a foreign one as well, one that trains internationally, and that will probably be very difficult.
I also considered doing a story on foreign athletes and how it is difficult for their family and friends to root them on from back home. This is considering that their families back home aren’t able to access American networks that air UGA athletics. I think I could pull a good interesting story from this topic, but I think finding the right athlete may be difficult. I would also look into some ways that families get around not having American networks- online streaming, getting film in the mail, etc. It also may be difficult contacting the families, but I want to focus on how they feel about sending their child to another country and then not even having the ability to watch them compete.
And finally, I came up with a story idea as I was doing research into this topic. As I was reading through some articles I realized that their are a lot of critics and people who oppose recruiting nationally. This includes coaches, fans, staff, and other athletes. Some people believe that recruiting foreign players brings down the competitiveness of a sport and takes opportunities away from American athletes. There are many people who are avid opponents to college teams pulling kids from other countries, I just worry whether I’ll be able to find some who are willing to speak out. I also have my reservations on this idea as well because I can understand how a racist undertone might be placed on this story. Having pride in the country and American athletes isn’t racist of course, but giving people a platform to speak out against college students coming here from other countries just doesn’t make me completely comfortable. Due to the times this country is in, I would have to find an acceptable and appropriate way to report this.
Looking at the foreign athletes at UGA, you could also flip that around and look at the UGA athletes now overseas. For example, Kenny Gaines is now playing basketball in France and Charles Mann is in Latvia.
I really like the holiday idea. It would be interesting to see if their families come in to visit them or whether they only get to see them in the off-season. I know when breaks roll around for me, with game commitments, my breaks are shorter than most of my friends because I can’t drive back and forth to Athens for games.
Remember the key things about stories: Why now? Why do we care? There are lots of good stories involving international athletes and why American schools recruit them. I wrote some about the issue of xenophobia back in the day (http://www.chronicle.com/article/As-More-Coaches-Recruit/11513; you may need to be on campus to read), but there are any number of great stories to consider: Where do coaches recruit from, and what linkages are there between particular teams and particular countries? (UGA women’s golf, for example, has recruited heavily from Spanish-speaking countries.) Think maybe about comparing SEC institutions across one or two sports or tracing a particular coach over her stops at various colleges.