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.<\/p>\n
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\u00a0athletes 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. \u00a0This 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.<\/p>\n
Now for the others…<\/p>\n
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\u00a0athletes 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"