Lesley Weidenbener: IU students’ stories add to Final Four coverage

You might have noticed that IBJ posted and sent out in emails a lot of stories and tidbits about last weekend’s NCAA Men’s Final Four and associated festivities. Regular readers won’t be that surprised. We have been known to do — or even overdo — big downtown events.

This year, we were able to expand with more sports coverage than normal. We don’t have traditional sports reporters on staff. We have Mickey Shuey, who covers the business of sports, and we have two sports columnists, including Mark Montieth, whose coverage you can see on page 32A. But we have relied on the Associated Press for player features or game coverage.

This year, we were excited to work with Indiana University’s Sports Capital Journalism program to augment our coverage. The program, based at IU’s Indianapolis campus, is for undergraduate and graduate students and is managed by award-winning sports journalist Malcolm Moran, who wrote stories and columns for The New York Times, USA Today and other publications.

The Sports Capital Journalism program puts student in the press box, the locker rooms and press conferences of major sports events. They were on hand in Miami when IU won the College Football Playoff National Championship. They went to Paris in 2024 for the summer Olympic Games. And this past weekend, they wrote stories about not only the Division I Final Four teams but also the teams in Indianapolis for the Division II and III and NIT championships.

The students — Chris Schumerth, Colby Shannon, Carter Jones, Jenna Black, Sean Strohmayer, Matt St. Charles and Cameron Cocquyt — wrote game previews, features and game stories throughout the weekend. We didn’t run them all, and we still used AP when we needed something immediately or when we saw a story we liked. But these student journalists did an outstanding job.

You can find their coverage alongside IBJ’s other stories at IBJ.com/the-tip-off.

Among my recommendations are the following headlines:

• “Michigan’s May relies on perspective to manage chaos of today’s game,” by Matt St. Charles

• “More vulnerable this time, UConn keeps an incredible moment in the past,” by Carter Jones

• “Around Greenfield, Mullins’ moment was nothing new: ‘I’ve seen that shot a thousand times,’” by Colby Shannon

• “Tattoos reveal Lendeborg’s journey to confidence, success,” by Jenna Black

There was even a story about University of Connecticut player Alec Millender, who previously played for IU Indianapolis and participated in the Sports Capital Journalism program. The story by Chris Schumerth — headlined “Former IU Indy player returns to city for Final Four in UConn jersey” — focuses in part on Millender’s work covering the 2025 Final Four in San Antonio.

This program is especially meaningful to me because, before coming to IBJ, I ran a Statehouse reporting program at Franklin College. The goal was to teach student journalists how to cover government and politics — but I learned as much or more than they did.

Today, two of those students work at IBJ: Managing Editor Samm Quinn, who was a student when I was leading the program, and reporter Taylor Wooten, who came after me.

I know from experience that programs that immerse students in real-world scenarios offer lessons that just can’t be learned in the classroom.

I encourage you to read the students’ work on our website and look for ways you can offer students similar hands-on experiences. You’ll benefit as much as they do.•

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Weidenbener is editor and assistant publisher of IBJ and The Indiana Lawyer. Reach her at [email protected].