Jaymi Curtis



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News Story

How hefty investments are redefining the recruiting game

By Jaymi Curtis, Spencer Meyer and Jacob Fessler

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (Nov. 5, 2024) – It’s late at night, May 31, 2024, and round after round of football recruits are walking onto the field of Memorial Stadium. Their objective? To get their pictures taken with a light blue Indy Car, the Indiana Hoosiers’ recruiting team has rented for the night. Each of the 13 high school athletes will make this one of many photo stops to end a long day of events carefully curated to convince these players to commit to the Indiana University football program. This is not a unique night, however. Multiple nights just like this go on every few weeks of the summer for the IU football program alone. These elaborate attempts to sign young athletes have always been around in one form or another, but with the 2021 ruling in favor of athletes being able to profit off of their name, image, and likeness, as well as subsequent rulings and new initiatives from athletics programs nationwide, spending on the recruiting process has skyrocketed. 

When asked about the changes in recruiting due to name, image, and likeness, the Assistant Director of Strategic Initiatives for Indiana Athletics, Jason Gandhi, said,

“Every year since, there’s been a ton of changes to recruiting and how it’s done.”

With these changes, recruiters have had to adjust their process for recruiting athletes.

“We all know those numbers that get thrown around,” Gandhi added, referring to the excessive amounts of money offered to athletes; money that is now legally being given to athletes.

“There are some kids that get paid two mil from NIL just for signing,” said IU Women’s Soccer player Hope Paredes.

Paredes, being an IU athlete, knows many of the school’s biggest stars personally, giving her a front-row seat to the conversation of NIL deals all across the country. 

Hope Paredes (left) wrestles the ball away from the opposing team. Paredes is a senior on the Indiana University Women’s Soccer team and has made an impact on the team’s defense. Photo by Spencer Meyer/Indiana Athletics

This comes with a caveat, though, as Gandhi points out,

“There’s no way to fact-check it right now,” then saying, “It’s the wild wild west out here.”

This is a sentiment shared across the sports media world. 

“What is that player worth for our particular circumstances,” the director of the National Sports Journalism Center at IU, Dr. Galen Clavio, said during a press conference, the statement was regarding the mindset of athletics programs when settling on amounts that will be offered to athletes. He then adds,

“Allegedly, IU Men’s Basketball spent almost $4 million in NIL money bringing in players this off-season.” 

Dr. Galen Clavio points to a student during an NIL press conference. Clavio is the director of the National Sports Journalism Center at IU, making him an expert in the field of NIL. Photo by Emma Pearce/Indiana University

This raises yet another question: How will schools keep up with one another? Going forward, schools will have the ability to opt into $22 million in NIL money that will go towards paying athletes. As Dr. Clavio states,

“All of the big schools will opt into it because if they don’t, their competition will.”

This raises concerns for the athletic departments that are going to have to come up with this money that, as Dr. Clavio says,

“Already spoken for.” “There’s going to be a lot of people who don’t have jobs,” Clavio said.

Ethical questions have also been raised, as this will disproportionately affect smaller schools that don’t have the same budgets as schools such as IU or Alabama.

According to Gandhi, “It’s never really been all that equal,” 

but this is not a helpless case, in his opinion. Gandhi brought up Gonzaga, a team that, whilst never having won a championship title, their basketball team did advance to the national championship game in both 2017 and 2021.

“Nobody knew who Gonzaga Basketball was 25 years ago, and now they are always in the conversation.” 

Jason Gandhi speaks to a group of student-athletes about the possibilities available to them through NIL. Gandhi, the Assistant Director of Strategic Initiatives for Indiana Athletics, organizes the annual NIL Summit for the Indiana Hoosier athletes. Photo by Spencer Meyer/Indiana Athletics

 

There have also been concerns raised over the possibility of schools recruiting athletes based on their potential as brand ambassadors under NIL as faces of their brand. When confronted with this concern, however, Dr. Clavio declared,

“I’ve yet to see a case where it’s happened.” Dr. Clavio added, “These coaches want to win.”

That being said, these coaches are, in turn, willing to shell out lots of money to the best athletes in their respective sports. This then leads to bidding wars where the athletes can be the ultimate benefactor, and as Paredes puts it,

“I think a lot are going to choose a place who is offering the most money.”

Bloomington residents reflect on the impacts of NIL on high school athletes. They believe that NIL shapes the way that college recruiters recruit high school athletes.

The downside to these bidding wars is that some athletes, namely Matthew Sluka and Jaden Rashada, have been given verbal offers that convince them to commit to a team, which they are then allegedly not paid for. Many of these students make these deals while still in high school, meaning they often have a lack of intricate knowledge of the laws surrounding business deals, leaving them susceptible to relying on verbal agreements to come to fruition. 


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Public Relations Story

Apple unveils newest product

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Tim Cook, CEO of Apple Computer, Inc., Showcases Newest Innovation, the Apple Watch Collection 

Media Contacts
Ava DeSena
Jayne Bills
Jaymi Curtis

CUPERTINO, California (September 9, 2014) – Today, Tim Cook, CEO of Apple Computer, Inc., announced their newest product, Apple Watch with its innovative and profound design features and details.  

Tim Cook revealed the Apple Watch, Apple’s newest product, released on Sunday at a special event held at the Flint Center at De Anza College in Cupertino, California. 

Young man using Apple Watch.
IUSTV News Director Ashton Hackman responds to a text message on his Apple Watch. Being able to communicate quickly with his news team is very important.

 

 

 

What differentiates Apple Watch from past products is it creates an entirely new audience and consumer for the company and could open up new doors to future innovations in their technology. This product features groundbreaking interface, profound personalization features, and its momentous operations to enrich everyday lives. “This product and how it functions will redefine what people expect in its category,” Tim Cook said.  

Apple Watches deep innovation and precision leads it to be “the most personal device we have ever created,” Cook said. With Apple Watch being entirely customizable in appearance and capability to fit the user’s personality and style, users have  freedom to be creative and showcase their individuality right on their wrists. With the precision and functionalities given by Apple Watch, personalization can go far beyond the small screen. Apple has designed six different straps and a mechanism that makes the straps easily interchangeable. The sport band, the leather loop,  leather maudlin buckle, leather classic buckle, stainless steel link bracelet and the milanese loop. All the bands listed can be used for different occasions, activities, and styles. One size does not fit all, so Apple assured to create a smaller watch with matching smaller straps to guarantee all differences were taken into account.  

Young woman using Apple Watch.
Professor Jill Romack checks the time on her Apple Watch. Her watch lets her multitask by checking the time while also responding to emails.

Apple created three distinguished collections of Apple Watch to accomplish a feeling of inclusivity and range to their consumers. The first, Watch, then Watch Sports, and the last collection, Watch Edition. 

Pairing seamlessly with the iPhone, Apple Watch enables additional, more progressive, and intimate forms of communication such as sending a sketch to a contact, getting someone’s attention with a light tap on the screen, or users can share their own heartbeat. Those features all align with digital touch communication, a prime goal in the creation of Apple Watch, just by tapping on a contact picture on the screen users can have live communication by drawing or tapping. The watch also showcases features as a comprehensive health and fitness device.   

Health is extremely relevant to people of all ages, Apple Watch enhances and reintroduces ways to improve users health and daily activities. The four sensors and sapphire lenses located on the back of the watch detect users pulse rates. New features instilled into the watch along with the pairing of the GPS and Wi-Fi from users’ iPhones, the watch provides an extensive picture of daily activity. Two profound applications have been created with Apple watch, one being the fitness app that monitors all movement and activity throughout the day and the second is the workout app which allows users to set specific goals that are achievable and personal for numerous types of workouts. “Overtime Apple Watch actually gets to know you the way a good personal trainer would. It’s designed to deliver intelligent reminders to keep you motivated and on track.” Apple’s Health and Fitness team said.   

The Apple Watch required a revolution of user interface to be set into motion, completely different from iPhones due to its smaller size. After careful consideration and collaboration from Apple, they decided to add a dial on the side of the watch called a digital crown. The dial allows users to navigate and enlarge content on the small screen display. It allows zooming features, precise adjustment, serves as a home button and is used without touching or blocking the screen. Along with the dial, other input technologies accommodate the watch’s size. The watches screen recognizes the difference between a tap and press, providing immediate access to a range of controls. The chip inside the watch is extremely complex and advanced that it compares a miniaturized computer system onto a single chip to essentially enhance and change the way users feel, use, and hear this product.  

Steve Jobs unveils the new revolutionary Apple Watch. Apple Watch establishes a sense of convenience to users and enriches the simple tasks of everyday life. 

Jony Ive demonstrates this new technology. Apple Watch will officially be released in stores early next year starting at $349.

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