To promote the new sports media and communication major in the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication at Iowa State University, faculty and staff are hosting the school’s inaugural “SMC Week” Sept. 30 through Oct. 4. The event series celebrates the forthcoming major, which will formally launch in Fall 2025.
“We believe that SMC Week will be a home run strategy to showcase to our students what the new major will offer next fall,” said Jan Lauren Boyles, Greenlee’s associate director and associate professor. “This event helps set the stage for our expanded academic offerings on the horizon.”
ESPN’s Clinton Yates — host of the network’s “ESPN Daily” podcast and panelist on television programs, such as “Around the Horn” and “Outside the Lines” — will serve as the event’s keynote speaker. Yates will participate in a Q&A session focused on successful strategies for launching a career in sports media, which will be moderated by Greenlee Assistant Professor of Teaching Tony Moton.
The week’s events will kick off with a sports movie trivia night, which is a collaboration with ISU’s Screenwriting Club. “I think that our involvement in this event symbolizes something greater that is happening at Greenlee–giving power to the students,” said Liam Brennan, a senior in journalism and mass communication and one of the club’s leaders. “I believe that this is what Greenlee is about: supporting student ideas by supplying resources and opportunities that help fully realize a student vision.”
The Monday night activity (6-7 p.m. in 172 Hamilton) will also celebrate the sports film “Field of Dreams” and include a tribute to James Earl Jones. Moton, who also serves as the Screenwriting Club advisor, will start the event by reading a column he wrote about Jones earlier in the actor’s career.
“I think it’s exciting for the new Screenwriting Club to lead off the new sports media program’s launch celebration,” Moton said. “These films are a big part of our sports culture, and we have screenwriters to thank for that.”
Sports media faculty will have a “Join the Team!” recruitment event for prospective majors on Wednesday (11:30 a.m.-1 p.m., in the Hamilton Commons). Students can meet SMC faculty, obtain sports snacks and gather more information about the new major.
As part of the new major, interested students can attend a Wednesday night session (5 p.m. in 172 Hamilton) to learn more about the planned study abroad experience within the new major. As part of the proposed “SMC: Touchdown in Dublin” program, SMC students and faculty will travel to Dublin, Ireland, next summer to cover the Iowa State/Kansas State conference matchup. The trip will be led by Boyles, as well as Associate Teaching Professor Gary Sawyer, Teaching Professor Brenda Witherspoon and Assistant Teaching Professor James McNab. Integrating global experiences into the new major has been an intentional focus of SMC faculty.
“I think it’s important being exposed to study abroad, be exposed to other cultures,” Sawyer said. It’s a chance to really do some content generation that we don’t have,” Sawyer continued. “It’s a chance to learn problem solving and all things associated with being somewhere where everything is not handed to you.”
The SMC Week will culminate with the keynote delivered by Yates (Friday from 11 a.m.-Noon in Memorial Union 2630).
Yates began his career working for the Washington Post where he covered local news, sports, politics, pop culture and more.
Yates has produced a wide range of critically acclaimed multiplatform storytelling at ESPN. In 2018, he hosted the “30 for 30” podcast “Rickey Won’t Quit”, which chronicled Rickey Henderson’s comeback attempt in Major League Baseball. In 2022, he launched “Threads”, a YouTube series exploring the history of sports uniforms. By 2024, his feature on the University of Virginia football team’s return to normalcy after a tragic shooting was recognized as an APSE finalist for long-form feature writing.
In March 2024, Yates was named as the host for the “ESPN Daily” podcast. He is also a regular host on ESPN 710 in Los Angeles, where he lives.
Before superstar NBA player Ja Morant was drafted, Yates had done his first E:60 on the basketball phenom. This show chronicled everything to know about Morant including his personal life and his unique journey of getting to the NBA.
All events are free and open to the public.