JournalismJournalism Showcase

ESPN’s “Journalism Showcase” – September 15, 2017

Every NFL offseason since he was drafted in 2013, Detroit Lions defensive end Ezekiel Nana “Ziggy” Ansah has made the 6,000-mile trek back home to Accra, Ghana.

In July, he returned to Ghana with a purpose – to conduct his first football camp in the West African country with 28 million people.

ESPN cameras accompanied the Pro Bowl defensive end home to his high school, Presbyterian Boys Secondary School in Accra, where he conducted a camp and gave out football cleats and sneakers to participants.

Ansah’s story will be the subject of Michelle Beisner-Buck’s Monday Night Countdown feature on ESPN (Monday, 6 p.m. ET), leading into the Detroit Lions-New York Giants Monday Night Football game.

Associate producer Christopher Duzan of the ESPN Features Unit discusses the making of the story in the video above.

Beisner-Buck and Duzan will discuss the making of the Ansah story on the “SC Featured Podcast” scheduled to publish on Monday.

Jon McLeod and Mac Nwulu produced the video above.

Journalism on Display

  • ESPN staff writer Bill Barnwell reports for ESPN.com on several NFL players who are at or near the end of their current contracts and have much to gain or lose in the 2017 season.
  • As the Cleveland Indians continued winning at a record-setting pace, fivethirtyeight.com sportswriter Neil Paine used data to show that the Indians are amazingly even better than they seem.
  • TheUndefeated.com writer Jason Reid tracked down Marlin Briscoe, the former Denver Bronco and the first black starting quarterback in the modern era of the NFL. Now 72, Briscoe shared his story of being a black quarterback in the 1960s and his post-career drug problems.
  • No. 4 USC has won 11 straight games. ESPN senior writer Ivan Maisel reports that the Trojans’ success has come after coach Clay Helton has ditched the traditional glitz and glamour normally associated with the program’s football team.
  • On ESPN.com, Joel Anderson writes that University of Houston Cougars football player Ed Oliver has been representing his school and his city since the devastation of Hurricane Harvey.
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