Tag: interviews

Team interview notes

Jordan Hill – Coaches on both sides of the transfer situation

Completed Interviews

Athletic directors

Brian DeBerry, Grayson High School

Richard Ricketts, Prince Avenue Christian

Coaches

Jeff Herron, Grayson High School

Jason Tone, Worth County High School

Xarvia Smith, assistant coach, Allatoona High School

Adam Carter, defensive coordinator, Valdosta High School

Christopher Reece, former Oconee County player/Camden County assistant

Greg Slattery, assistant coach, Camden County High School

Stacey Stewart, former Camden County High School assistant

To add

Mark Fleetwood, Peachtree Ridge head coach

Jon Weyher, Peachtree Ridge athletic director

Scott Jackson, Decatur High School head coach

Carter Wilson, Decatur High School athletic director

 

Historians – The people who write the Georgia High School Football Daily newsletter.

 

Morgan Ainslie

Sam Hicks, Counselor and former coach at Clarke Central

 

Emily Giambalvo – personal story of a transfer

Jasen Johnson – interview set up for Saturday morning

Parents and siblings of Jasen Johnson

Chris Griffin – Flowery Branch High School coach (school Jasen transferred from)

Nick Bach – Mountain View High School coach

 

Emily Greenwood & Chenault – effects of transfers on playing career & academic repercussions

High school players

Dylan Wonnum

Eugene Brown

College players

Isaac Nauta

Staff

Glada Horvat – UGA Athletic advisor / Academic eligibility

Evan Greenberg

In doing some research, there is a lot more to work with with Florida and I think I could have enough to go with just one state.. With that in mind, these are people who have spoken out or about  against Florida’s transfer policies. List will grow as I ask who to talk to from these people, but operating from a whole state at the moment and then scaling down.

Hillsborough High School football coach Earl Garcia

Armwood High School football coach Sean Callahan

Denarvise Thornton, Montverde Academy AD (Was) in charge of eligibility with FHSAA until 2015. Montverde’s athletics are great, but they don’t have a football team.

Rick Scott’s office (He passed HB 7029, which will go into effect in 2017 and makes players basically free agents; “High school students who transfer will be immediately eligible to play sports, as long as they don’t play the same sport at two different schools within a school year, the law says.” -Orlando Sentinel

Walt Griffin, Seminole county superintendent

Ashleigh and Nicole

We have gone through and tracked GHSA Constitution changes from 1978-2015. Our main focus will be writing what the changes are and ideally, why they came to be. Our most important interview is Assistant Executive Director of GHSA, Jay Russell, as he is in charge of policy. We are working on infographics to display the changes of policy. We are hoping Mr. Russell can point us in the direction of more interviews because as of now, he is the only one we know directly involved with implementing policy change at the state level.

 

Glenda and Bryan: Transfers taking spots

Interviewed:

  • Deion Williams- SWD DB Coach

Will interview:

  • Fletcher Salter- SWD head coach
  • Roman Adu
  • Bryan Lamar- Tucker’s head coach

I plan on using the interviews with the coaches to get the names of players that have transferred or out of their sports program.

 

Interviews

Contacts:

  • Tanya Anderson: Administrative Assistant
  • Professional Source
    • Sports Psychologist: Ariel Trankler
      • Why does the number decrease like that through sports
        • Freshman → Seniors
  • Local
    • high school coaches
      • North Oconee HS: Coach Moore
      • Prince Avenue HS:
        • Soccer Coach
        • Softball Coach
    • Counselors: Clarke Central HS. 
  • Those affected
    • HS female student athletes from HS you interview
      • Soccer
      • Basketball:
      • Outdoor Track: North Oconee

 

Personal Story Interviews

As we discussed today, I’m going to need to shift gears, so the list of people to-interview is a lot longer than the people I have.

I have talked to Bryan Harris at Jackson Spalding, and he did give me some general insight into the plans of the ballpark as well as the communication strategies that went into promoting it. We talked about plans for the future as well as preparation past and present. Harris is a reputable and intelligent source on the park, because his job requires him to be, and I believe I have at least some usable stuff from talking with him.

From there, I will analyze ballparks with similar layouts to the ones the Braves are planning, with Dallas/Arlington as a temporary model. I’m working on figuring out who exactly those people will be (I know this goes against instructions here, but I’m in full course-correct mode), but I know that chamber of commerce from these cities will be involved, as well as local business owners, where I’ll just spend a day in that area and talk to people.

Nicole Personal Story

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.

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.

 

 

Individual story sources

Athletic directors

Brian DeBerry, Grayson High School
Richard Ricketts, Prince Avenue Christian

Coaches

Jeff Herron, Grayson High School
Jason Tone, Worth County High School
Xarvia Smith, assistant coach, Allatoona High School

As I work through the database, there will be several more athletic directors and head coaches that are added to this list. These particular people just happened to discuss topics that carry over to my individual project as well as my part of the team project.

To add

Historians – Potentially the people who write the Georgia High School Football Daily newsletter. I talked to Chip Towers about this story, and he said they would be good sources. They were previously AJC employees.

Personal Story Interviews

My two interviews thus far have been of compliance directors at UGA and Kennesaw State. After speaking with them, I have shifted my focus a bit on my story. Instead of examining the differences between Power 5 and smaller Division I compliance programs, I’m going to look into the lack of subpoena power in the NCAA and how it affects the ability to conduct investigations and enforcement processes.

After reviewing my interviews, I might want to revisit Mr. Senour and Mr. Flippen to get more details on their opinions on NCAA enforcement and see if they have any specific experience with investigations. My interview category has only been compliance directors so far, but now I need to consult the legal actors that work for and represent institutions in order to get their input on the process. Dr. Suggs helped give me the following interview list, which I’m hoping to get through.

Janet Judge, Sports Law Associates

Chris Schoemann & Mike Glazier, UGA legal consultants

Erik Christiansen, NCAA

Chuck Smrt, The Compliance Group

Julie Roe Lauch & David Price, former NCAA enforcement chiefs

Gene Marsh, Jackson Lewis Birmingham

Mike Buckner, Holland & Knight

Glada Horvat, UGA academic eligibility adviser

Clarkston list of interviews

Interviews

  • People directly involved
    • Head coach Wesley Etienne – have talked to him multiple times, but not in an interview
    • Assistant coach Ayodeji Arise
    • Assistant coach Dione Hester
    • Muhozi Aimable, the UGA runner who I profiled last year and was on the Clarkston team a few years ago
    • Three senior male cross country runners who are all refugees – have talked to them conversationally, but not in an interview
      • Kon Kon
      • Suheib Mohamed
      • Bineyam Tumbo
    • A non-senior male cross country runner (either Awet Fitwi, Nzitunga Gile)
    • Parents and siblings of runners mentioned above
  • Local experts
    • Mayor Ted Terry – interview completed
    • Principal Dr. Michelle Jones – have talked to her in-depth in a non-interview setting
    • Bridget Ware – 12th grade guidance counselor
  • National experts
    • IRC – International Rescue Committee, based on Atlanta – JD McCrary (director)
  • Those affected
    • Leonie Parkinson – senior cross country runner who is not a refugee
    • Zyikeirra Robinson – sophomore cross country runner who is not a refugee
  • Man on the street
    • Maybe interview citizens in the town, shop owners?

Personal Story Interviews

Interviews I have

  • Club Lacrosse players
    • Men’s
      • Jake Sciotto
    • Women’s
      • Gabby Leonard
      • Emily Tower

Interviews to get

  • Tim Godby – Milton HS girl’s coach
  • Kirk Rogers – Young Harris men’s coach
  • Danielle Horoschak – Young Harris women’s coach
  • Current NCAA Lacrosse players
    • potentially Young Harris players
    • Mackie Marcellino and Peter Gerhard — playing at DI and DII schools up North

I would like to get the perspective of current players in the NCAA. I would also be interested to see how coaches in the south recruit in regard to demographics. Do they seek out players in the South? Or do they focus a majority of their interests in the North?