NEW ORLEANS – The Sun Belt Conference and Rhoden Fellowship Initiative continued their collaboration with the three fellows playing roles in league events during the 2018-19 academic year.
 
Miniya Shabazz, a recent Grambling State graduate, assisted with social media content and media operations for the 2018 Sun Belt Football Media Day in July. Current undergraduates, Deja Harrison and Allana Barefield, were a part of the media operations team for the 2019 Sun Belt Men's and Women's Basketball Championships at Lakefront Arena earlier this month.
 
Harrison and Barefield also conducted in-depth interviews with Sun Belt Commissioner Karl Benson for future content that will appear on SunBeltSports.org and the conference's social media channels.
 
Harrison, a New Orleans native and a sophomore mass communication major at Grambling State, is a sports writer for the Gramblinite student paper and a reporter for GSU-TV. Barefield, a Boston native and a senior mass communication major at Xavier (La.), is a student representative for the NABJ Sports Task Force.
 
"It has been wonderful to see our relationship grow and I look forward to watching it flourish in the years to come," said Benson. "Advocating for diversity is more about actions than words. I feel we are doing just that by giving these young people the opportunity to learn about and see the inner workings of intercollegiate athletics and big-time sporting events."
 
The Sun Belt's collaboration with the Rhoden Fellowship began during the 2017-18 academic year with a Rhoden Fellow serving on the media operations team for the 2018 Sun Belt Men's and Women's Basketball Championships at Lakefront Arena.
 
The Rhoden Fellowship Initiative, headed by ESPN The Undefeated editor-at-large and former New York Times columnist William C. Rhoden, is a training program for the next generation of sports journalists from historically black colleges and universities. Through the Initiative, fellows utilize sports as a backdrop and lens to produce relevant, timely and informative stories about culture, race and class, while also serving as campus correspondents for The Undefeated.
 
Quotes from Rhoden Fellows who were a part of the media operations team for the 2019 Sun Belt Men's and Women's Basketball Championships:
 
Deja Harrison
"I really enjoyed working with the Sun Belt conference. I was able to see how the tournament comes together from an operations standpoint. Everyone I came across was very helpful and I was glad I actually got to do hands-on work during the experience."
 
Allana Barefield
"The Sun Belt Basketball Championships was truly a learning experience to be able to get an inside look of how everything was operated. I am grateful to have been able to meet Karl Benson, Scottie Rodgers and Patrick Hairston who wants to see women, especially African-Americans, have a voice in the sports world."