Grabbing the attention of students and fans, football coach C.J. Ward works on expanding the recently formed athletic media team to promote all sports online.
The team currently has about 19 members and is continuing to grow. With the dedication to not only coach and teach, Ward takes the time to train his students in social media production.
“I have a background of social media management from college as I ran our football team’s social media accounts,” Ward said. “I use my knowledge and how we operated things at the collegiate level to guide them in their social media aspirations.”
With a goal to spread the talent of all our athletes, the media team gives students opportunities to present their own creative work.
“My favorite part is that I get to have my own creative outlook in my own photos,” junior Sadie Dovey said. “Some benefits of being on the media team is that we acquire new skills, build a more professional network, gain more experience and it can help with career development”.
A passion for the sports and capturing the moments that make the game then presenting it across social media platforms is a primary reason kids want to be on the athletic media team.
“I just honestly enjoy capturing the electric moments in sports whether it’s through pictures or videos,” Ward said. “Obviously being a younger teacher and growing up when social media started means it has always been a part of my personal life.”
Having students work with the athletic social media team allows them to bring new insight and trends that can be appealing and bring attention to the overall athletic program. Over the past summer Ward had posted on instagram for those interested in joining the media team just to reach out to his email.
“I just want to keep building off this year and see how we can develop the program to provide the best content possible for Klein Oak.”
Along with shooting for the Klein Oak yearbook, this program has shown success with numerous past students leading them to bright futures.
“Our social media team has shown a direct path to opportunities post graduation as we have students that have worked with the NFL, NBA, and major collegiate programs,” Ward said.
From gameday count downs, hype videos, interviews and edits the media team shows a deeper insight of what it’s like to put in the work to be a student athlete.
“All I really want everyone to know is that everything is homegrown, we don’t really receive a lot of outside help so everything you see on our platforms is done by my social media interns and myself.”
Although the athletic media team acts more like a club, photography classes are available to take as electives and they also offer sideline shooting opportunities for all sports. Photojournalism and Advanced Yearbook 1 are options through the journalism department via CTE and for students interested in the darkroom process and advanced artistic photography, Art II – Photography is available.
“I have a student on the media team this year who is also in Journalism I so she will be moving onto yearbook staff next year,” yearbook adviser Joanie Gill said. “I encourage students who want sports shooting experience to take yearbook in high school. Not only will they get to shoot and learn from others, I also enter their work in state and national contests, giving them great exposure and resume’ boosts.”
In addition to journalism, interested students can see their counselor about taking CTE electives in social media and sports management.
