While scrolling through your Instagram feed, students may come across sports news posted on a Carterville Athletics page. As you go through their account, you’ll see a lot of posts about game scores and highlights.

This page is associated with the CHS Sports Reporting class at Carterville High School. This class is made up of students who want to publish stories about games, matches, competitions, etc. for the most recent CHS athletic news. The class was created as a semester class in the fall of 2021, and it is now in its second year.

Mr. Cure, an English teacher at CHS, is in charge of the class. He began the class because he had a passion to take on sports reporting. “Covering, Promoting and Highlighting student athletes has been a passion of mine since before I was a teacher. I felt like it was a natural thing for us to create considering the fact that we have so many talented individuals who deserve to be highlighted,” Mr. Cure explains.

Although it may seem easy to others, there could be some struggles along the way. Mr. Cure explains, “There’s always growing pains when you start something new. Figuring out how to cover everyone equally and making sure that you have everything staffed. But, we are really starting to get to a point where we are covering everything adequately and doing a really good job. And students are starting to buy in on what the class is built for.” 

Many students joined the class to learn something new. Junior Brayden Rinehart said, “I enrolled in this program because I plan to major in sports broadcasting in college and felt it would be a great way to begin my studies and gain experience.” 

Another junior, Danielle Scott added, “I’ve been taking this class for three semesters now, having started my sophomore year in the fall of 2021. It was the first year we had the class, so we had to start from scratch. We’ve expanded our platform significantly and begun different things with promoting our athletes and coaches.  It’s really a great opportunity for everyone, including the students in the class,” states Scott. 

Senior Ayden Brown, says his advice to anyone wanting to join the class would be, “To work their tail off. Mr. Cure is going to ask a lot of you, and it’s going to be a huge deal, so step up and do your thing. Take advantage of whatever chance you can and have fun with it. Just like when Sam and I began interviewing athletes, it was a lot of fun. The most essential thing is to have fun with it.” 

Another senior, Maryn Vaughn, influences students to join the class by saying, “One of the most rewarding aspects of this class and why you should join is that you get to go to all of the home events not just to watch as a fan but also to help our class out. It’s a lot of fun for the athletes to see different pictures and videos of them that we take, and it’s also fun for all of us to get their feedback.” 

Mrs. Dorris from the CHS High School Publications class (yearbook and newspaper) gives input about the collaboration between the yearbook and sports reporting class by saying, “Being able to collaborate with another publications class has allowed our school media classes to be a lot more active in providing our audiences valuable information in a timely manner,” explains Dorris. When both classes are collaborating together, the students are introduced to the SISPA (Southern Illinois School Press Association), who hold a yearly winter conference that the students attend, and the IHSA Journalism Contest which gives the opportunity for students to showcase their journalism skills for awards. 

The sports reporting class continues being a step ahead from others and hopes to look into more video production in the future. The class is always trying to find a way to highlight students athletes in a new light at CHS.