Sports reporting in all its glory is part of the Department of Communication’s course schedule for spring semester 2005 at ETSU.
Chris Dortch, editor of the popular Blue Ribbon College Basketball Yearbook and a 1978 ETSU graduate, will teach the course.
“Sports Reporting: JOUR 4957/5957” will focus on writing, reporting and filing sports stories on deadline, and it is open to students as well as current newspaper professionals who would like to improve their writing and reporting techniques.
Taught primarily via the Internet, the course will include Dortch conducting four three-hour classroom sessions, once a month, throughout the semester, and he will also meet monthly with each individual student.
He will share his more than 20 years of experience as a sports writer, while helping students acquire the skills and strategies necessary to find employment in the field. Dortch’s newspaper career includes stints at the Kingsport Times-News, the Johnson City Press, the Pensacola News-Journal in Florida and the Chattanooga Times.
He currently edits the Blue Ribbon College Football Yearbook in addition to the College Basketball Yearbook which has long been known as “the Bible” of college hoops, loved and used extensively by college coaches, NBA scouts, print media, broadcast journalists – including ESPN’s Dick Vitale and CBS’s Billy Packer – and countless collegiate play-by-play announcers.
A published author, Dortch has written three books. He is regarded as an authority on college basketball and has become a regular on syndicated radio networks like ESPN, The Sporting News, Fox Sports, One on One and SportsFan.
For the last four years, he has worked as a reporter and consultant for Sports Illustrated, with an emphasis on college basketball. And during his career, he has covered such events as the World Series, the NCAA Tournament’s Final Four, and 13 major golf championships, including the Masters, U.S. Open and PGA, as well as the U.S. Amateur.
For more information about the sports reporting class, contact Dortch at 892-6026.

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