IUPUI Journalism Alumna Becky Harris
After Becky Harris graduated with a Bachelor’s in both Journalism and Spanish in 2016 and a Master’s in Sports Journalism from IUPUI in 2017, she moved to Spain to work as a teacher. Five years later, she’s still abroad and teaching 3rd and 4th grade EFL – English as a foreign language – but she hasn’t forgotten her sports writing roots.
In fact, with the help of an IUPUI Journalism connection, next week Harris will be working for USA Basketball at the FIBA U17 Basketball World Cup in Spain.
Harris will be providing coverage for the USA Basketball website as well as penning email blasts. She will also be the communications contact on the ground helping coordinate interviews with athletes. She learned of the opportunity through IUPUI Journalism professor Malcolm Moran, who is the director of the Sports Capital Journalism Program.
“I’ve stayed in touch with Malcolm since I left school,” she said. “He reached out to me because he knew someone looking for potential help with coverage of the tournament and asked if I’d be interested. The great thing with being a teacher is I have summers off to pursue other interests and opportunities, so he put us in contact and here we are.”
The tournament will take place in two cities. The group round games and Round of 16 will be in Marbella. The rest of the events for the winner’s bracket will be in Malaga city. Harris will travel with the USA Basketball team.
Although Harris has plenty of sports writing experience, she’s been spending time studying writing samples the organization sent her to get a sense of the style and tone they’re looking for.
“Even after some time away from journalism, I’m confident in my abilities and in my training but each organization always has their own twist on what they want in terms of coverage,” she said. “As I’m also the communications contact, I’ve been working with other members of the comms team this week to field interview requests and set up as much as possible before I arrive.”
One challenge for Harris will be that FIBA won’t release exact game schedules for the events she’s covering – Round of 16, Quarterfinals, Semifinals and Finals (assuming the USA makes it through those rounds) – until after the group round.
“I know which days I have events but not the specific timing of it all, which will keep me on my toes in terms of scheduling interviews and organizing myself!” she said.
Follow along with Harris’ work on Twitter and at https://www.usab.com/.