Ten young journalists enrolled in Jeff Nardone’s Sports Coverage class at the MIPA summer journalism workshop listened to guest speaker Geoff Kimmerly, the new Michigan High School Athletic Association (MHSAA) Media and Content Coordinator, speak about his responsibilities. It’s a job that he’s served in a relatively short time.
“The MHSAA (job) happened and this has been exactly what I wanted it to be,” Kimmerly, who has been in his position for 10 months, said.
The MHSAA recently added Kimmerly’s position to help manage its over 1,500 members’ high school sports media departments in an efficient way that keeps up with technology today, he said.
Kimmerly’s previous experiences in sports journalism before the MHSAA, as well as his current job experience, were also of interest to the Sports Coverage students.
“I’ve been on the side of things where you guys might be interested in being in,” Kimmerly said to the class.
According to Kimmerly, part of the reason the MHSAA hired him was to help increase high school sports media coverage. The struggling economy has hit today’s media hard, taking away many reporters who once publicized high school sports.
“There’s a lot less time and space dedicated to covering high school sports,” Kimmerly said. “We wanted to fill that void a little bit.”
To facilitate this, Kimmerly said he has worked to boost the content on the MHSAA website. Through the simple task of posting stats for sports such as wrestling on its website, the MHSAA’s site increased exponentially.
“(The website) allows us to interchange ideas,” Kimmerly said. “It shows we’re more than people sitting in an office building in East Lansing.”
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