I chose this topic because I am personally a Belmont Abbey student-athlete, so I thought it

would be interesting to make a podcast geared towards recruiting other basketball players

to Belmont Abbey. To be more specific, this will allow people to see what the life of a

student athlete is and how one might manage their time. I will also include advice for

potential recruits, since only 7% of high school athletes go on to play at the college level.

My purpose for this project is to inform others and to also showcase Belmont Abbey and its

athletic program, in the hopes of persuading them to consider attending. The primary

audience for the podcast is high school students, but it could also apply to parents who are

looking for the right school for their child or current college students who may change their

mind and decide they are interested in transferring. I chose this audience specifically

because it is the most relatable for me as the information that is produced throughout the

project is directed towards student athletes. It would probably be displayed on a website

where it is easy to navigate for someone looking at potential colleges.

My appeals are mainly logos, as they are geared towards factual information about the

school, although there is also an appeal to pathos as I cover some of the emotional reasons

that someone might select a certain college. I will be highlighting people’s personal

experiences at the school, and those first hand accounts can affect people’s emotional

response. Additionally, I think there is an appeal to ethos, since I am interviewing one of our

coaches, someone that students will look up to and respect. I chose to make a non-fiction

podcast because it really shows a person what real student life is like rather than reading

something that a marketing team developed to try to convince someone of the merits of the

school. I think this is the best genre because it is better to have someone tell you their

personal experiences, rather than reading an impersonal collection of facts about the
college. Additionally, I think that young people are more likely to listen to a podcast than to

read a brochure or an article. Podcasts are easy to listen to and easily accessible.

I started the project by researching some notable sources about Belmont Abbey’s history

and how the school was originally ran. After doing that, I turned them into an annotated

bibliography. After doing that, I thought about a way to help persuade people in choosing

Belmont Abbey. I thought of a recruitment interview/video that students would want to watch

if they were interested in a brief rundown of a student-athlete’s experience is like at Belmont

Abbey. That led me to write a script so I could run off of that while I did the interview with the

guests. I then interviewed a coach at Belmont Abbey to get his perspective of the school

and explain his experience there. I followed that up with an interview with an athlete on the

basketball team so the viewer can see from a student's perspective as well. I finished the

video with some insight from myself.

While doing this project, the most trouble I found myself running into was the timing of

everything and making sure everything got organized. While doing the project in so many

different parts, while also having other assignments on top of it to do. I find myself struggling

to find the right time to meet these people to interview and also find the time myself to edit

or work on a separate part of the project. My original idea was to get a coach, and a few

players all together to ask some questions and have some conversation about Belmont

Abbey. After seeing how hard it was to get everyone involved and actually finding people

that would voluntarily participate, I had to change the plan a little bit. Instead of doing a

podcast and having everyone at the same time, I had to break it up into parts and turn it into

a video essentially.
While I continued to struggle on the project, I had to go to someone for help. I decided the

best person for the job would be my mom. She gave me ideas, helped me try to put my

work together and even helped me find the path for what I really wanted to end up doing. I

was panicking a little bit, and to this moment, I still am very much worried about how this

turned out. With the help of others though, it sort of calms me down so I can really focus

and have someone else’s opinion if I’m not sure about something.