Student project turns into 'Wayne County Sports Documentary'
Northwestern seniors Jimmy Cooke, left, Max Albright and Ben Nichols pose for a photo before the premiere of their “Wayne County Sports Documentary” at Greystone Event Center in Wooster on May 16.
Northwestern High School media communications teacher Wes Martin gave his class what he thought was a pretty basic, straight-forward assignment back in October.
“The original assignment was for groups of students to make a 10-minute video documentary,” Martin said. “I wanted them to get used to telling a story, work on interview skills, camera angles and editing.”
Senior Ben Nichols, an athlete and huge sports fan, immediately saw way beyond that. “I stood up and said, ‘We’re going to make an hour-long documentary on the history of Wayne County sports,’” he said.
Nichols teamed up with good friends Max Albright and Jimmy Cooke to make a video unlike any ever done in Wayne County history.
When all was said and done, the trio conducted nearly 50 interviews and amassed around 100 hours in video footage. They averaged spending about 18-20 hours a week combined working on the project.
The “Wayne County Sports Documentary” had its premiere showing on May 16 at the Greystone Event Center in Wooster. The running time was 1 hour, 6 minutes, and it seemed just about everyone in the audience of about 200 spectators went away impressed.
Wayne County Sports Hall of Fame President John Foster was among those who were applauding the trio.
“I thought they did a really good job representing most of the schools in Wayne County,” said Foster, a retired teacher, coach and athletic director at Smithville. “They touched on a lot of the greatest athletes and teams we’ve had in Wayne County. It was obvious they put a lot of time and effort into it. They were really sincere in trying to do as good a job as possible.”
The depth of interviews and editing was well beyond what one would expect of high school students.
Journalism teachers have taught students for many decades, “show, don’t tell.” That means let the reader, or in this case viewer, experience the story through action, words and feelings rather than through summarization and description.
Rather than have someone talking about Northwestern coaching great Roy Bates’ relationship during his time at Indiana University with basketball legend Isiah Thomas, Cooke actually found a clip of Thomas thanking Bates on national television.
The trio also had great footage of many old teams such as the mid-1990s Orrville basketball squads, 1998 Red Riders football team and Hillsdale basketball taking on LeBron James and Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary.
“When we started spitballing ideas, I could tell it was going to be really big, which was fine,” Martin said. “This class is pretty open-ended, and they took it and went with it. That’s what you want to see as a teacher.”
Nichols, who operates the Wayne County Sports page on Instagram, which has nearly 5,500 followers, is extremely proud of the documentary.
“A couple days before (the premiere), we heard that some people were saying it's going to be a giant flop,” Nichols said. “Now look, it's at 2,000 views after two days on YouTube. We appreciate everyone who helped us make the video. It was a lot of fun.”
The boys said they will long remember making road trips and meeting a who’s who of area sports greats.
“When we were in Columbus, (Norwayne/Ohio State wrestling great) Kollin Moore was showing us around the campus,” Cooke said. “The light was green, and he pulled out, but a bunch of cars were going through a red light from the other side. He was starting to get mad but then realized it was a funeral procession and carefully backed up.”
Other interviews they listed as most memorable were meetings with Matt Beaumont, Ryan Berg, Justin Zwick and Louie Stanley.
Albright faithfully ran the camera for all the interviews. He knew his work was worth it after seeing the appreciative faces at the premiere.
“It's just a great feeling to know that we made a lot of people proud and most people enjoyed it,” Albright said.
Cooke said it’s a proud feeling to have successfully completed such a big project.
“We put in a lot of work, and I was nervous that people wouldn’t like it, even though I thought it was really good,” Cooke said. “We really appreciate everyone who came and supported us.”
WQKT sports director Mike Breckenridge narrated the documentary, working off the students’ script and clearly adding his own tweaks.
The trio used music from local artists, including KB Elite and Kooney. Classmate Will Schaad helped with the project in a variety of ways.
Albright and Cooke both plan to attend college at Walsh University, where they’ll play soccer. Nichols’ postgraduate plans are undecided.
So what grade did Nichols, Albright and Cooke receive?
“Oh, it was an A,” Martin said, “actually, A-plus-plus. I was extremely impressed with the magnitude of what they did, the amount of people they interviewed and the time they took on it. Our school equipment that they used is OK, but there’s a lot better editing equipment and plug-ins available that they could have used. By the end their files were so large that my computer kept crashing because there wasn’t enough memory space left.”
Thanks to the “Wayne County Sports Documentary,” the memory of many of the area’s all-time greats can be relived over and over.
To see the “Wayne County Sports Documentary” on YouTube, visit www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5H-PaUovrY.
Aaron Dorksen can be emailed at AaronDorksen24@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter at @AaronDorksen.