Our names are Sarah, Chris and Matthew and we are all graduate students at the Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Arizona State University pursuing master’s of sports journalism degrees. This website, the reporting that has been done, the photographs, videos, packages, etc. are all part of our final enterprise project in our graduate program.
In early October, Matthew pitched the idea to take an in-depth look at the final JUCO football season in Maricopa County. When he heard about what was going on, given his background as a JUCO football player in California, he wanted to try and tell this story.
Together, the three of us have put in countless hours of work for this project. We have spoken to players, coaches, administrators, former coaches, former players, MCCCD officials, elected officials and various others around the Valley. This website is a reflection of our findings and experience in accomplishing this project.
We would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to all of the people that helped us with this project and allowed us to tell their stories. This includes, but is not limited to, head coaches Mark Mejia, Ryan Felker and Doug Madoski, coaches Joe Kersting and Brian Howard, Asst. AD Mike Lavella, all players at the four schools, MCCCD officials Matt Hasson and Elliott Hibbs, and Marie Sullivan.
We would also like to extend a special thank you to Phoenix College head coach Mark Mejia for the openness he has had with us. He allowed us unbelievable access, which gave us the ability to tell this story in a more complete way. Thank you, coach.
Sarah Farrell
Sarah earned her B.A in Communication with a minor in Sports Management from Trinity University in San Antonio, TX. She has gained extensive experience in content creation while working in both collegiate and professional sports media relations departments. Sarah was the lead photographer and website designer for this project. She also assisted with some of the video editing, created the data visualizations and reported and wrote a portion of the final story.
Matthew Roy
Matthew began his college career at a junior college named College of the Desert in his hometown of Palm Desert, CA. There he earned his Associates of Arts in Communications and played football for the roadrunners. From there, he earned a full scholarship to play football at a small division II school in Durango, CO, named Fort Lewis College. This is where he played his final snaps of football and earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism and Multimedia Studies. Matthew has put in many hours on sidelines and behind a keyboard writing stories as the lead sports writer and sports editor for The Independent, FLC’s student newspaper. For this project, Matthew was the lead writer and reporter. He also assisted with videography and photography.
Chris Lindsay
Chris is graduate of The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, with a B.A. in Communication Studies and a minor in Journalism. His collegiate sports writing and reporting experience, as well as his leadership roles, at UNCC broadened Chris’ horizons to explore opportunities in sports broadcast journalism. Chris was the lead in creating the documentary video. He was also the head videographer at the games, and assisted in taking photos as well.