What a night (for multimedia)

The entire Sampson saga starting with the recruiting allegations and ending with his $750,000 buyout has not only kept our sports desk busy, but it has also kept the multimedia desk buzzing.

For every press conference leading up to his buyout, we had a videographer filming the event for our Web site.

So when I walked into the newsroom Tuesday afternoon and heard that IU had hired Marquette coach Tom Crean, I knew it was going to be a long night. A long night sure, but definitely an interesting one that any journalist would enjoy.

The players

To start off, our sports editor Lee Hurwitz and managing editor Peter Stevenson tracked down five members of the IU men’s basketball team playing a pick-up game at the School of Health, Physical Education, and Recreation building. Digital audio recorders in hand, they got exclusive interviews with a couple of the players.

Oddly enough, Jamarcus Ellis opened up about his rocky relationship with interim coach Dan Dakich, and we got the entire thing on tape.

“I never had plans to leave,” Ellis told the IDS. “It was just – Dakich being the head coach – we didn’t see eye-to-eye on things, so I thought the best thing for me was to part ways and get my academics right.”

Lee and Peter got some great information and quotes from the players, but the thing that made it great was that we had the digital audio from the interviews. That allowed us to use the audio in today’s “That’s What He Said” podcast and in the “Hoosier Headlines” podcast.

The new coach

Later in the evening, we heard about a flight from Wisconsin to the Monroe County Airport. I grabbed a video camera from the office and headed out to the airport to meet up with one of our photographers and men’s basketball beat writer Chris Engel.

I had never been to the airport so I had a little trouble finding it, but eventually I got there just in time to see a plane land and pull up to a building on the other side of the airport.

This of course sent the television crews, photographers, reporters and even a few fans who had gathered at the main parking lot scrambling to their cars.

When we got to the plane, it appeared that we had the wrong plane or Crean had already made a fast escape so I caught a ride back to my car, and I headed to a hotel in town where we thought Crean could be staying the night.

I arrived just in time to catch Crean walking towards the main entrance. I ran up and immediately starting taping what turned out to be an impromptu press conference with Crean with three media organizations.

The whole thing lasted for about 20 minutes, and I was surprised that Crean answered so many questions.

The editing

After the presser was over, I headed back to the IDS newsroom to get back to work on multimedia projects. It’s not very often that I get the chance to actually go out and shoot video since I’m a member of management so I had a few things to get done at the newsroom when I got back before I could call it a night.

We lifted the audio from the Crean video and used it in a soundslide with photos of Crean outside the hotel. Also, we used it in this week’s edition of the “That’s What He Said” podcast.

Managing editor Peter Stevenson, multimedia editor Ashley Braun and I were at the IDS until well after 2 a.m. this morning working on the various projects for the Crean story.

In the end, I didn’t leave the IDS until around 4:30 a.m. Right now it’s nearly 6:30 a.m. and I still haven’t went to bed. But I am fine with it because this is one day that I won’t soon forget.