By: Chirp City Staff | @bsusportslink
Ball State Sports Link
For the second straight year, Ball State Sports Link has partnered with Project Leadership to produce a documentary showcasing Season 2 of the ICE League.
Funded though a grant from the Ball Brothers Foundation, a team of digital sports production students led by junior Tim Reusche will start production at Saturday’s draft for middle school athletes at Muncie Central High School.
The Sports Link/ICE League executive production team includes Jake Bartelson, Matt Craig, Mick Tidrow, Nick Panozzo, Jason Porter, Cory Stace and Kaitlyn Young.
Additional Sports Link students will serve on the crew in a variety of production roles throughout the nine weeks of the season.
The students will also produce weekly digital content for the league’s social media platforms (@ICELeague) and website, www.iceleague.org.
The Inner City Educational (ICE) League, in its second season, is an innovative initiative that motivates participants to be strong student athletes as they move toward high school and post-secondary educations.
The ICE League ties in closely with Project Leadership’s mission to assist local students to and through college. Project Leadership programming, which includes 21st Century Scholar enrollment, places an emphasis on strong student GPA performance.
Project Leadership’s ICE League sets the grade-point-average bar at 2.5 and higher for students who wish to fully participate in the basketball League for 6th-8th grade girls and 7th- and 8th-grade boys in Muncie Community Schools.
In the inaugural 2015 season, the ICE League had 69 boys participate as well as 11 coaches representing four non-profit youth centers.
“Season 1 of the ICE League exceeded our expectations as 50 percent of our players increased their eligibility for amount of quarter play because of improved GPAs while in the League,” Project Leadership Director Tammy Pearson said.
A partnership with Muncie Community Schools and permission by students’ parents allows the ICE League to monitor student GPA eligibility before the February draft and progress during the expanded 9-week playing season. Students with a:
- 2.5 or higher GPA are eligible to play all 4 quarters of each game.
- 2.3 to 2.49 GPA are eligible to play 2 quarters of each game.
- 2.0 to 2.29 GPA are eligible to play 1 quarter of each game.
All players in the ICE League are able to participate in the League at no cost to them or their families because of funding provided by community partners in Muncie.
