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- Ball State Sports Link - Production Diary
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September
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14 comments:
Last week I did a package on the "Leadership Group." The Leadership group was formed by the Ball State field hockey team as a remedy to the team captain system. And this was not arbitrarily thrown together. It was a 2-3 month process to decide on who the leaders would be.
Those selected to the Leadership Group then had to read a book about leadership (something like a 10 steps to great leadership type of dealie). According to the coaches and players the book was a huge help.
I found it admirable that the team took leadership so seriously. The truth is good leadership is difficult. It's easy to tell the seniors to be the leaders and call them captains. But it's much harder to go through a process to find the right people for the job and establish an organized infrastructure of seasoned guidance and emotional uplift. Now the question becomes: Can the leadership group lead the field hockey team to a few more wins?
BC
I had the same opportunity as Brandon did to do the leadership group package and the thing the surprised me the most and was somewhat shocking was how polite all the girls were. They go out on the field hockey turf and battle it out hitting each other with sticks and taking hard falls. These girls are tough athletes and for me to find out they have great sportsmanship is even more amazing. I also like how leadership group is set up. Its not only on the field but off the field too which shows me that even during the off season they are still on top of their game.
Field Hockey is looking to turn things around.
After losing six non-conference games the Ball State Field Hockey team is looking to get back on the right track. After watching my first full field practice yesterday, I noticed how hard this team works, and how the seniors want to turn their season around.
In an interview with senior defender Jodi Mann, she stressed that the team’s goal was still to win the MAC. Although this may seem unlikely based on their current record, Mann has the experience to know that it is possible. As a sophomore, the team had nine losses and turned it around winning seven games in a row. They then played in the Tournament through an overtime victory finished second.
The field hockey team has had a lot of success historically and has been a part of the NCAA tournament five different years, the most recent being 1997. Ball State has also had 18 All-Americans, the most of any school in Mid-American Conference history.
Can the Cardinals Turn it around:
History would say yes, two years ago Annette Payne’s (Ball State Field Hockey Head Coach) team was able to do it. With the leadership circle and the intensity of Jodi Mann the Cardinals can make a run.
But the key to success is consistency; it’s been an issue for the team this season. On September 12th the team lost by one goal to a nationally ranked team, Michigan, only to lose two days later to St. Louis, an inferior team. The Cardinals need to play up to their potential every game and if they are peaking at the right time in the season they may make another run at a MAC Tournament Championship.
Peter Carr, thank you for posting your web story.
I did a package this week, teamed up with BC, over field hockey goalie Tiffany Shiflett. My thoughts from this experience...
- The fact that a goalie has to wear that much equipment on during an 85 degree practice is absolutely insane. Tiffany told us that it's ten degrees hotter inside the suit, and now I can understand why field hockey goalies are skinny.
- When running around the practice field, I definitely took a field hockey ball straight to the foot. And since I was wearing sandals (Swingley is shaking his head at me right now) it hurt! I can't imagine having to stand their and take the balls of parts of my body, especially since not all parts are protected.
- Field hockey SID Lisa Rusche is awesome at her job, hands down. It's great to see an SID that cares about her sport like she does, especially since she probably knew little about the sport at all before taking up the job.
- I will say though, field hockey is an incredibly hard sport to make a good package on from a production stand point. And don't take it as me saying "Oh they're just field hockey, they don't have any stories", because that's not true at all. The players are wonderful, they're polite, they talk alot, and seem to be very willing to help us out with anything we need. Trust me, with how Tiffany was mentioning how she felt sick, the fact that she stayed afterwards for an interview with full pads on was out of this world.
But because of nature of the sport, the danger of getting close to the action, the fact you rarely have any idea where the ball is going to be in ten seconds, and much more small stuff makes it truly hard from the stand point of holding a camera.
It's just different from a sport like swimming, where you always know where hte person is going, or like gymnastics, where you know the person is going to do an awesome flip in five seconds.
Other then that, because of the generosity of the team and how they've made themselves available to us, I hope we can do them justice with our live remote next week.
Overall, I hope we were able to do Tiffany justice with our 1:15 piece. I spiced it up with some hip hop music, so hopefully she likes it!
This week Peter and I went out and shot a profile piece about Jodi Mann. Shooting wise we could I know that I could have done better. On another note if we had known what topic we were going to do on the Friday before I would have gone and shoot game footage to get isos of Jodi. We had some game footage that other people had shot, but we mostly used practice footage because it was better. The story is what it is. She talked about her leadership and the goals that she knows the team can attain if they can play consistently as a team and do not play down to teams that they should beat. As far as the lighting is concerned, it was hard to use the sun in a way that was effective. We were trying to play with the iris on the camera to get a better image, but we had the iris to open and the background is washed out. Even with color correction the image is ok but not great. The other interview that we did that I believe will be used at a later time, turned out ok, but we shot at a slightly different angle, and the sun wasn't as much of a problem. This is a problem that can be fixed next time...we just need to be more mindfully of this issue.
There is no high school field hockey in Indiana. So that makes head coach Annette Payne's recruiting job a lot more difficult... doesn't it? It's not really that hard according to Payne. She and an assistant coach do most of the recruiting. They go to different tournaments and talk to girls. Pretty basic.
This year's team has 19 players from seven different states and one from a different country. Culture clash? Not anything serious, but junior forward Brooke MacGillivary said with a laugh that they always argue on how to pronounce different words.
BC
This weekend I am apart of two remote productions the first is for soccer on Friday and the second is on Sunday for the Field hockey team. I have been preparing for color commentary for a sport that before last week I knew very
little about.
I know I am not an expert but after talking with senior defender Jodi Mann,
I have learned the most come fouls called, field hockey jargon, and the confusing 8 on 4 penalty corner.
I am excited for my first color commentary role on a live broadcast. I am really looking forward to the game, and sharing insights with the fans tuning in on TV and on the web at www.ballstatesspots.com
My package the studio show next week focuses on the Field Hockey team. One thing that was brought up when coming up with the idea for the package is that there are no high school field hockey teams in Indiana. All of the players have to be brought in from out of state.
So it turns out Brittany Hammer is pretty good. She has more goals and total points than anyone else on the team. The crazy thing is she's a freshman. With that said, her unexpected production hasn't translated into any wins. But if she can improve as the season goes on, maybe she can be a symbol of hope for future field hockey teams.
Maybe I'm getting a little ahead of myself. But don't forget this team has Brooke MacGillivary (who was 2nd in the MAC in goals last year with 15 while playing two less games than the leader who had 16 goals) for another year. They also have goal keeper Tiffany Shifflett for another. While she might be a little overrated, her defense teammates don't always help her out.
Basically I don't see this team having any type of magical turnaround this year. They'll improve by the end of the year, but not drastically. But next year could be a completely different story.
BC
I still had a lot of fun doing the production the other week of the field hockey team, even though they lost. I wasn't in the truck, so I don't know how it all looked from that perspective, but from where I was on the sideline, it didn't seem bad. Pete and Steve did a good job of calling play by play and color.
The biggest problem I saw from the team is the lack of shots on goal for us. The other team had 20 to o ur 4. You can't score that many points when you aren't shooting. I think we have too many good players to be losing by shutouts in so many games.
This week I help edit a profile package on Ball State's Freshman Field Hockey Forward Brittany Hammer. My partner Brandon had already done the interview the week before so the footage was shot. The interview was dark but we tried to lighten it the best we could with color correction. That weekend the field hockey team had a game on Saturday, so I went out and shot ISOs of Brittany Hammer and tired to get as much of the goal scoring as possible so that we could potentially use that footage later. I got some good ISOs of Hammer. We got the package editted together, but I feel that if we had more information from the interviews...something more of interest we could have put together a more solid package.
On a side note...
I was thinking that we have had the most trouble with lighting this year at the field hockey field, mainly becasue of the time of day that we always get the interviews (after practice). At this time it getting dark, but there is still a lot of sun still coming from the west. We need use the sun a the back light turn the iris down and use a bounce board to brighten the face of the interviee or an idea that I had if the team would allow us to, we could shoot interviews in front of there lockers in the locker room. The reason that I think this might be allowed is because they do not use this space to change in. It is basically just used for equipment storage. If lit well it could look cool. Idk, just a thought.
There are seven seniors on women’s soccer team and five of them live together. They share a special bond, and out on the field the chemistry that they developed is a result of the close relationship they have together.
In the house six girls live together: soccer players Emily Rein, Annie Aiello, Bailey Decker, Katelyn Alexander and Sarah Shumacker; and field hockey player Jodi Mann. They support one another and when they have time they go to Jodi’s games. She returns the support and attends soccer games dressed as her favorite roommate, number 2 Aiello.
Aside from supporting each other in their athletic endeavors, they have family dinners together on Wednesday nights and, in the rare occasion they have some down time, like to play Cranium. Mann and Decker play Wii and get very competitive, although Decker admitted privately that she thinks she is the better player.
The house seems to be fun and games with the girls constantly play practical jokes on one and other. One included plastering Jodi Mann’s room with the familiar yellow stickies. “We put post-its all over her room and I wrote on this one and put it really high on the wall. It said ‘Can you reach it?’, and she had to get a step ladder to get it down” Alexander said.
It is October and according to Jodi Mann it is officially Scare Month…she has 31 days to scare Annie Aiello. This includes hiding in closets, jumping out behind doors and hiding under Aiello’s bed. Even during the house tour two of Aiello’s roommates hid in one of the rooms and surprised her.
Six athletes living together have developed a bond deeper than friendship.
There house is filled with joking, laughter and love.
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