WSU Elliott School of Communication graduate student Taylor Dietterich said he never imagined he’d be sharing a media room at the Final Four with TV personality Dick Vitale and ESPN analyst Andy Katz, or basketball legends Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Danny Manning.
“I never thought I’d be there at any point in my career,” Dietterich said, “let alone as a 22-year-old kid working on a college newspaper.”
When the Wichita State men’s basketball team packed the charter plane to Salt Lake City for the NCAA Tournament, two journalists from the Sunflower, WSU’s student newspaper, went along to cover the game. Covering any game in that tournament is a big deal. Dietterich, production editor, and Austin Colbert, editor-in-chief, both said that they had no idea they’d be courtside at the Final Four in Atlanta a few weeks later.
Colbert said that stepping on the court with only the players, coaches and media up there with him was probably like stepping on to the field during the Super Bowl. “Being part of such an exclusive group to be allowed onto the court during the game was very special,” he said.
Dietterich said it would have been easy for him to feel overwhelmed at having to write for such a massive media event like the Final Four, if not for having veteran journalists from local media outlets like the Wichita Eagle around to advise him.
“I don’t think people understand how truly vital teamwork is,” he said. “Just being able to bounce ideas off of people and getting real experience really helped me.”
Even though the two worked alongside journalists from national media, Colbert agreed that he gained more from working closely with Wichita professionals covering the game “I think these local connections will be more beneficial than some big name person at ESPN or Sports Illustrated that probably wouldn’t remember me anyway,” he said.
Colbert had traveled with the team to every game since the start of the NCAA Tournament, but was still in awe of the Final Four’s massive scope. “The Final Four was the craziest thing I’ve ever done, seen or been a part of,” he said. “I mean, the Elite Eight and the Sweet Sixteen were like covering a high school basketball game compared to it.”
Covering the NCAA Tournament was something of a media marathon for the two journalists – writing, photographing, tweeting and editing all the way from Salt Lake City to Atlanta. Colbert and Dietterich agreed that one moment defined the season. The six-point win over Gonzaga to make it into the Sweet Sixteen proved, as Coach Marshall said, that the Shockers belonged.
“Beating Gonzaga was insane,” Colbert said. “The whole craziness of the post-game celebration – people dancing on the court and everything –continued into the tunnel and the locker room. I’ve never seen a celebration like that.”
However, for the newspaper staff, with more wins came more work. “If we lose to Pitt in the first round, that’s probably just a photo and a brief,” Dietterich said.
But the Shockers didn’t lose to Pitt in the first round, or to Gonzaga in the second. As the Shockers kept winning, Sunflower staffers Colbert and Dietterich kept traveling, writing and working. In that month, Colbert said he was lucky to have had three days in a row at home.
“The whole NCAA Tournament was just a blur,” Colbert said. “Everything happened so quickly that in the end it has all meshed together into some sort of foggy, dreamy trip that I’m not sure really happened.”
Even after all the emotional ups and downs of the tournament, losing the Final Four game itself was a minor detail for Colbert and Dietterich. The opportunity to realize a career goal transcended the loss to Louisville.
“Sure, it would have been kickass to win,” Dietterich said. “But being in the same room with media professionals I have looked up to since I was 6- or 7-years-old was insane. It’s just a feeling I can’t describe.”
EnergySolutions Arena, The Staples Center, the Georgia Dome – in the rafters of these venues are jerseys with names like Stockton and Malone, Wilt Chamberlain and Shaquille O’Neal. And if you had looked to the court during the Shockers’ NCAA Tournament games, you’d have seen two student journalists from Wichita State, who had been covering their team all season long.
“There are a lot of good sports journalists out there who don’t get to do that,” Colbert said. “And to do it as my school was making a historic run to the Final Four is the part that I will remember the most.”
“It was simply amazing.”
