After practices conclude, Oregon football players dispense of their sweaty pads and jerseys and head to the showers. As they walk past the Hatfield-Dowlin complex towards the locker room, many of them must stop to talk with the media.
For several players, these recorder-wielding people seem like foreigners with jobs they’ll never approach. But some players are journalism majors, taking classes about the very concepts reporters and videographers utilize after football practices. In some ways, these players have extra appreciation for the media because they might end up in their shoes.
Studying journalism can also make interviews easier for players.
“It definitely helps me be more comfortable,” linebacker Derrick Malone said. “I know (the media’s) objective, I know their goals and I try to work with them.”
Malone, who’s set to graduate after this term, majors in advertising, but one of his favorite classes — taught by his favorite teacher, Deb Morrison — dealt primarily with journalistic storytelling.
Every summer during “Zero Week” (in between graduation and the first week of summer classes), Morrison teaches a two-week-long sports media workshop with fellow UO journalism professors Mark Blaine, Rebecca Force and Morrison’s husband, Dan. The course pairs student athletes with student journalists, and several media professionals (like USA Today’s George Schroeder) and sports figures (like former Oregon and NFL quarterback Dan Fouts) come in to speak.
Oregon student athletes learn interview techniques and multimedia production skills, but Morrison points out another course outcome.
“What we’ve seen from the student athlete side is discovery,” Morrison said.
A prime example of this, Morrison said, is Craig Loper, currently a sports anchor/reporter for KMTR. Loper walked onto the football team his freshman year (2009-10), but injuries and walk-on inequalities made him question sticking with the sport. The summer after his freshman year, he took the sports media workshop and fell in love with journalism. He quit football later that summer and declared as a journalism major the following school year.
“Being from an athletic background, sports media is something I’d always thought about anyway,” Loper said. “This class kind of just shored things up for me.”
Loper began working for KMTR last year and attended several football media opportunities, which he said were uncomfortable at first due to his close relationships with several Ducks, namely Boseko Lokombo and Brian Jackson.
The discomfort eventually wore off, thanks in large part to Loper’s football experience. He knows what it’s like to play Oregon football, giving him a leg up on other media members when he talks to players like Bralon Addison (WR), Thomas Tyner and Byron Marshall (both RBs), who are all pursuing journalism degrees.
Marshall hosted a radio show in high school and said he would love to host a sports talk show in the future.
Addison — currently nursing a torn ACL — participated in a high school journalism program and wants to be a sports analyst after football.
While the NFL is the ultimate career goal, even the longest-tenured professional players need jobs afterwards. Since their lives revolved around football for decades, sports journalism is an obvious choice.
“You play football all your life and you get to talk about sports for a job,” Addison said. “How fun is that?”
Follow Victor Flores on Twitter @vflores415