Lys Marquez ’24 and Ethan Love ’24 cover TCU Men’s Basketball for TCU360 on January 30, 2024.
Many students dream of standing on the sidelines of a game, being up close with the action for the wins and losses. Ethan Love ’24 and Lys Marquez ’24 have made it a reality. Over the past year, both Love and Marquez have worked together with TCU 360 to help cover Horned Frogs across athletics for the student media outlet.
Love, sports editor for TCU 360 and executive producer for TCU Unscripted, is a journalism and sports broadcasting double major, which he credits for making him a multi-media journalist. While he loves covering the big three—football, basketball and baseball—he says there is just something special about Horned Frog football.
“Football feels like it means so much more. It’s once a week, and everyone goes. It has the most recognition. And it’s just fun.”
Marquez, a journalism major, has been following TCU Athletics for over two years. She’s covered football and men’s and women’s basketball, building relationships with the teams and athletes to strengthen her reporting. As a former basketball player, she admits that women’s basketball is her favorite to cover.
“Being able to interact with the team, women’s [basketball] has more lenience,” she said. “They are so personable, from the coaches to the athletes. Even in the WMBA, everything is a little bit more personable, and you can connect with them more.
“I like the idea of highlighting these women because they don’t get as much as the men.”
The Ball Is in Their Court
While journalism does not offer a specialization in sports, Love and Marquez didn’t let that stop them from pursuing their path at TCU. For Love, that means combining his journalism degree with a degree in sports broadcasting.
“Learning the production side in Sports Broadcasting helps me when I am in Journalism in front of the camera and producing,” he said. “It elevates the quality of what I have done.”
For Marquez, that meant finding a mentor and looking for opportunities both in and outside of TCU. This has led her to not only cover Horned Frog sports but also national teams such as the Dallas Mavericks with D210Sports. She cautioned for those interested to not be afraid of trying.
Love reporting for TCU360 this past July at the fall football camp.
For her first story in the Visual Journalism course, she planned to cover ticketing during COVID-19 but realized she really wanted talk about the effect of COVID-19 on the football program—including an interview with former coach Garry Patterson.
“This is not what you want to do,” Marquez said that she told herself. “Go shoot for what you want to do even if it sounds impossible. I had the correct resources to help me out. Coach Patterson was so nice about and so were the players I interviewed for it.”
Both Love and Marquez stressed the importance of getting involved with the opportunities available, from joining TCU 360 and Unscripted to networking in the community. DFW and TCU are rich with opportunities for students interested in sports.
Hit It Out of the Park
Marquez working on the sidelines covering TCU Football.
As student journalists, Love and Marquez were part of incredible moments in TCU athletic history. Marquez was a field reporter when TCU played in the Fiesta Bowl and the College Football Playoffs. Love photographed March Madness for TCU 360. Working for the press has given them many opportunities.
And they don’t just do traditional reporting. Along with writing stories, they’ve reported and anchored on-air and created social content across multiple platforms. Love and Marquez credit two classes to their success at TCU and beyond: Reporting and Mojo (Mobile Journalism).
“It really helped me start writing and getting things out quicker,” Marquez said of her Reporting class.
Love said these classes, along with some of his specialized courses in Sports Broadcasting like Sports Radio, have given him the skills to go anywhere.
“[They’ve] given me all the necessary tools to label myself as a multi-media journalist. Knowing I can go broadcast, print or digital, or producing. It has prepared me to have options,” he said.
Shoot for the Stars
At this year’s Jay & Gail Milner Distinguished Student Journalism Awards, Marquez received the award for Best Sports Reporting and Love’s Unscripted team tied for the Multimedia Narrative award for their NCAA Men’s Basketball National Championship live pre-game show, the first live production the show has produced.
What’s next for these two seniors? Both Love and Marquez are looking for jobs in production and reporting, both locally and nationally. But the dream? Love wants to be the next Evan Grant, beat reporter for the Texas Rangers, and Marquez wants to be on air and doing content creation for a national team. We can’t wait to see what they do next.