Indiana’s volleyball program is making a dramatic turnaround.
After finishing the 2017 campaign at a lowly 12-20 (1-19 in Big Ten play), the Hoosiers rebounded with gusto in 2018, claiming a winning record of 16-15 (with a bettered conference mark of 7-13).
But head coach Steve Aired, now heading into his second year with the program, wants the fans packing Wilkinson Hall to remember where the program came from.
A 20-part documentary series produced by Media School students will make this possible
Ambition: The New IU documented the team’s journey from the beginning of its rebuilding season in August 2018 through its final games. A new, five-minute episode was released on the team’s Twitter account, @IndianaVB, each week.
“Why we are doing this is to be historically correct when I say to people, ‘I think this thing is going to be really, really good in a few years, and the building is going to be great, and it’s going to be a lot of fun,’” Aird said. “I think it’s going to be fun to look back on, where it started, how it started and just knowing where it’s headed.”
Media School graduate student Morgan Gard, senior Zain Pyarali and sophomores Connor Hines and Austin Render were the crew behind Ambition. The quartet of talent became involved through The Media School’s National Sports Journalism Center.
“The concept for Ambition began when I saw there was a void of people understanding what this program is and what it was, and I certainly wanted to paint the picture of where I thought it was going to go,” Aird said.
Each students served different roles in the entire production process. Gard was the videographer, attending all home and away games. Pyarali, who headed the production, spendt most of his time editing and reviewing footage of anything from practice sessions to the players’ personal lives. Hines and Render helped Gard and Pyarali with both videography and editing.
For the full story by Daniela Molina, visit the Media School website.
Ambition: The New IU
Episode 1 pic.twitter.com/WQmCRTPeMW— Indiana Volleyball (@IndianaVB) September 5, 2018
