Jane Yermakov

Laughing while laying on the football field for a better camera angle, senior Tylie Biggs, Tracks Yearbook Design Editor, takes pictures at the JV football game against Hendrickson on Oct. 12. The journalism programs work year round to provide continuous coverage over the events happening in the community. “I think it is important to have journalism kids and others in broadcast out there [on the football field] because I know when we’re out there, even during the bad times of the game, it helps having us around the team and supporting them,” Biggs said. “They can’t hear everything happening in the stands, so having us there to keep the team going and encouraging them really does mean more to them than we think.” Photo by Jane Yermakov

At Gupton Stadium, next to the football players, cheerleaders and coaches, there is another group that is just as much of a staple on a Friday night as the players themselves. They are seen holding cameras, sometimes crouching to get the best angle or running down the sideline with the play. These are the journalism students who work week after week to collect the best footage and media of football games for the high school and community. 

The Cedar Park High School journalism program operates under the title of CPHS News and consists of about 50 students who are a part of either the award-winning Tracks Yearbook, The Wolfpack Newspaper or The Wolfcast broadcast program.

“I really enjoy being on the field because you get to be a part of everything,” senior Tylie Biggs, Tracks Yearbook Design Editor, said. “You get to watch all the choir things and be behind the scenes, but you also get to be on the field next to the players and the coaches and be a part of that team as well. You can go over to the student section and they’re all cheering and jumping and you can be, too. You never feel like you’re missing out. There’s always something to be a part of, always somewhere for you to go and always something to do. You feel really involved and really incorporated in everything on the field.”

After a photo-taking event, yearbook students upload their photos and select their best pictures for yearbook spreads. Biggs is working on the varsity football spread in the 2023-2024 school yearbook, so she has to go through all the pictures her staff  takes at football games to find the best ones that suit her page.

“I look for a lot of emotion [in the photos I choose for my yearbook page],” Biggs said. “Most people look for a lot of action shots, but I like to get the excitement or the crying. I like the emotional aspect of football like the hugging, the team bonding and everything like that. I look for a lot of celebration shots right after touchdowns, the jumping in the air, the handshakes that they have, all of that type of stuff.”

The Wolfcast is the broadcast program that airs most days during DEN. The structure of their shows is made up of a package, which consists of a big story, two smaller stories and a small segment that can highlight, for example, a scholarship or a sports report. At the Friday night football games, they film as many plays as they can in order to catch the best plays of the games.

“On the field, it’s very fun to see the football games up close,” senior Cason Johnson, Wolfcast Executive Producer, said. “Being able to see the student section above you and the band playing right on the field and just feeling the vibration of that music and those footsteps on the field is very thrilling, knowing that you could be tackled on the sidelines at any moment. It’s very exciting. Being able to go up into the [announcer’s] booth above [the stands] to look down on everything so you get that bird’s eye view of the game versus actually being on the field, seeing both perspectives, is really interesting.”

The broadcast students upload and organize the clips they captured from the football games themselves during class or on their own time. Junior Reese Elizondo, Wolfcast Sports Director, helps capture footage for her packages to air and to use in the hype videos each week. She also keeps the @CPHSNews Instagram updated during games. 

“If we didn’t have my job, not many people would be as informed as they are about the sports around our school,” Elizondo said. “Since we cover the sports, fundraisers and team events, it gives teams that wouldn’t have much coverage, the coverage they deserve.”

The football games from the perspective of the journalism students is a mix of excitement, stress and hard work.

“I love the thrill of it,” Elizondo said. “I’ve loved sports for a long time, so being on the field has always been something that I’ve wanted to do. I find it really fun. Depending on how the game’s going, any play could be the play of the game. The game against Hendrickson last week was honestly one of the craziest ones I’ve been to just because it was so back and forth the entire game and we went into overtime. It was crazy with all the running around and it was just so much fun.”

The stress that comes along with being a part of the programs is in part due to the strict deadlines the journalism students are held to, so it is necessary to rely on communication. Every cycle of the school year, the students have to go to multiple outside-of-school events and get pictures or footage, while also working on other content for posting.

“Right before show day, I have to look over everything and make sure it’s all good and ready to go because if there’s anything that’s screwed up it’s a big issue,” Johnson said. “That falls on me, it falls on [broadcast adviser Anthony] Garcia, it falls on the entire class. It’s a very stressful thing being in that position of power where I get to say what goes and what doesn’t go. If I make the wrong choice, The Wolfcast could go really bad, we could say something controversial and overall it can just be a huge issue that has a chain reaction on the student body and we don’t want that, so hopefully I’m good at my job.”

Not only are the journalism students learning life skills such as working on deadlines, but they are also saving memories and informing people of what is happening in the community, Biggs said.

“It really is important [what we do], I know a lot of the varsity [football] players text me all the time for the videos, asking me if I got a specific play,” Biggs said. “It is really important to them and it’s a big deal. It’s what helps them get into college for the next four years of their life, so knowing that you’re a big part of that is really cool. Also with the photo aspect of it, they don’t really realize it as much in the moment, but that’s the only thing that they’ll ever have to look back on. To go back to that moment with the picture that you took and capture the emotion and everything else that is going on in that exact moment through that exact photo is really important.”