Sports Nite

I pulled this picture off Instagram, which is why it is a little fuzzy, and also why I converted it to black and white. At the end of tonight’s television production, much of the crew got together. It was the last sports show of the semester. The young woman that directs the highlight show is graduating. She’s been a part of IUSTV for almost four years, and a member of the station’s management for three years. They created a nice little goodbye montage for her. The sports director was anchoring tonight. They’re friends. She, in fact, brought him into the program. To keep the video a surprise he called the package from the desk, which was a cool little moment.

There’s also a few people in that photograph who have been a part of the station for three years or more. There are hot shot freshmen. There are people who, this very evening, made their first on camera appearance. The sports director, who won a statewide award last year, is in there. A lot of these students, working on the same show last year, can claim second-place in the College Media Association’s Pinnacle Awards, which is aptly named. Second in the nation.

When I talked to the group in their post-production meeting tonight — after the director’s cut of the touching goodbye montage was shown — I got to say how different things were when the outgoing director first started here. How much stronger and how much smoother an operation it is. The sports crew have sent three people to ESPN and a handful to local stations across the country in the last four years. But now we’re starting to get good at this stuff.

And I thanked them for doing this. We have a joke that the Thanksgiving week holiday really starts on the Tuesday the week before Thanksgiving. Students have often mentally checked out. And then those cliched “My parents bought my airline ticket, but my flight is on Wednesday … ” jokes. And most of our students don’t have classes on Fridays, anyway. But here they are. Late Thursday night. Most people have skipped town, but the student media are still doing the things they love, with people they care about. It says a lot about what they want to do, and it’s a special thing.

The guy who designed the studio is in that picture, off on the far left. He works with us a lot. We’re both just happy to help this group learn how to do this.

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