Indiana University Athletics
IU Diver Begins Journalism Career
8/30/2005 12:00:00 AM | Women's Swimming and Diving
Aug. 30, 2005
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - After proving herself in athletics by earning All-American honors with eighth place on the one-meter and 12th place on the three-meter at the 2005 NCAA Championships in West Lafayette, Ind., senior Lisa Silvestri is gearing up to prove herself in another arena while in her last season of competitive diving. The next goal for the ultra-hardworking Silvestri is to put her journalism degree to good use once she graduates from Indiana University next summer.
The Huntingdon Valley, Pa., product recently sat down with IUHOOSIERS.com and related the moment she found out what she wanted to do with her life once her competitive diving career comes to a close.
"When I was in high school, my senior year, the Philadelphia affiliate (WCAU) of NBC called my house because I was always in the local papers for diving," Silvestri said. "They were doing a high school sports segment, and they wanted to bring me into the studio as an outstanding high school athlete. I did my interview with Vai Sikahema, who played with the Eagles and is a reporter for NBC there. I thought that was really cool because he was an athlete and I was an athlete, and he got into broadcast journalism."
Silvestri continued to explain how her experience in the NBC studios helped define her chosen career path. Since the experience in the studio was a first for her, she soaked in everything about the interview.
"I didn't really know that much about it," Silvestri said. "I knew that I liked to read and write. I also love interviewing people. People are just so interesting. Everyone has their own story. That was my first taste of it. I loved being in the studio with all the monitors and microphones. I felt glamorous. That is what got me into it. When I came to college, I really enjoyed the writing and behind the scenes part of it. That experience early in high school is what did it."
The connection between diving and journalism remained an intertwined part of Silvestri's life when she transferred to Indiana from Penn State. Shortly after coming to Bloomington, Silvestri began preparing for the 2004 Olympic Trials. During her interview with IUHOOSIERS.com, Silvestri explained how she became involved with the Bloomington Herald-Times during that time period.
"When we were going to the Olympic Trials, the Herald-Times was out at diving every day," Silvestri said. "They would have a reporter and photographer out at the pool watching us practice and interview us every day. When Doug Wilson was interviewing me, I turned the question around and told him that I was a journalism major. `Can I get you guys coffee or something to get into the business?' He said they would always keep me in mind. Then, the next day he came back to interview us, he said that the Herald-Times would be interested in me writing diary entries at the competition. That ended up being really cool with the `Diving In with Lisa Silvestri' diaries. I just talked about my nerves with all the lights and cameras on me at the Olympic Trials. That was my first Herald-Times connection."
After completing her first season at IU when she captured points for Indiana in all three events at the 2005 Big Ten Championships, Silvestri returned her attention to preparing for her life after diving.
"I kind of forgot about pursing journalism during the school year, but when the summer came around again I asked the Herald-Times if there were any internships available," Silvestri said. "I wasn't thinking that I would get to choose what I wrote about. I thought they would ask me to go interview someone that had 98 cats or something. They just asked me to come up with four or five topics I wanted to write about. I e-mailed them four ideas and they liked two of them, one on sports camps around IU and one on the video game industry."
After the Herald-Times decided to assign her the pair of stories, Silvestri learned some of the lesser known parts of being in the writing business: editors and deadlines.
"I went and met the editor, Stan Sutton, and it was scary for me because I had never met with an editor before," Silvestri said. "I was sitting there without a degree and he gave me a deadline for that Friday and it was a Tuesday. The next one was due by next Friday. Meanwhile, I had practices and was finishing up with diving camp. I frantically did the story."
Once again, Wilson entered the picture as a seasoned mentor in journalism to help Silvestri with her first steps in the business.
"I would e-mail the stories to Doug first," Silvestri said. "He would fix everything and e-mail it to the editors. He was my guardian angel through the whole process, I'd say. I loved doing it. I would love to keep doing it if they had any assignments for me. It was really cool."
Wilson also took time out of his busy schedule to talk with IUHOOSIERS.com about his experience with Silvestri as a teacher during her learning process.
"I think she did a good job with the stories we assigned her," Wilson said. "She had some good ideas, worked hard and produced some good stories. The obvious thing was her work ethic, that probably comes from her diving background. She is obviously mature. She just worked really hard from start to finish on everything. You can tell she has experiences as an athlete that the average student doesn't have, and those will benefit her."
The most exciting part of the process demonstrated that no only can Silvestri perform in diving, she is also well on her way to succeeding in the journalism world. The proof; Silvestri's article on the video game industry ran as the cover story of the weekend business section. "It was really unbelievable when they said they wanted to make the video game article the cover of the business section that weekend," Silvestri said. "That was awesome. It looks great in my clip file."
Wilson concurred on how exciting it can be for a young journalist to earn their first cover story.
"It is always exciting to see your first stories in the newspaper when you are getting started," Wilson said. "Those are the stories that you particularly remember. Getting the cover is also something great. I am glad she was able to do that with us. It will be fun to see what she goes on to do years from now."
