Vicki Michaelis
About: Vicki Michaelis is the director of the John Huland Carmical Sports Media Institute at UGA. She teaches classes in the institute’s undergraduate Sports Media Certificate program.
Education
M.S., Journalism, Northwestern University
B.S., Journalism, Northwestern University
Service Interests and Activities
Prof. Michaelis works to give students real-world experience in covering high school, college, professional, Olympic and adaptive sports. Sports media students have covered the 2018 and 2016 Olympics, the 2018 Warrior Games, the 2016 Paralympics and the 2013 Final Four for professional media outlets. Through the Carmical Sports Media Institute study abroad program, students will cover the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia for The Associated Press.
In Prof. Michaelis’ classes, students produce written, video and audio stories about UGA and high school sports. She established a partnership with the local NPR station, WUGA, to air student-produced stories. The stories became part of a series that has won multiple state and national awards. Her students’ written stories have been published by outlets including USA Today, ESPN.com, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Athens Banner-Herald.
Prof. Michaelis created the UGA-Grady High School Sports Broadcast Program, which trains high school students and advisors in underrepresented and/or underserved communities across Georgia to produce live broadcasts of their school’s sports events. The program donates broadcast equipment to the schools and exposes the students to college and career opportunities in sports broadcast and production.
Teaching Specialties
Sports media skills, including deadline event coverage, multi-platform storytelling, live-event broadcasting, studio-show production, social media production, and enterprise reporting and writing. Also topics involving the interplay of sports and society, politics and culture.
Experience
Vicki Michaelis joined the UGA faculty after 21 years as a sports journalist, the last 12 as the lead Olympics reporter for USA Today. She also covered NFL, NBA, Major League Baseball, NHL and major college sports stories as USA Today’s Denver bureau sports writer. She was part of the newspaper’s transformation in the digital age, expanding her skills as USA Today established itself on digital platforms. Prior to joining USA Today, she worked at The Denver Post, where her beats included University of Colorado football and the Denver Nuggets. She began her career at The Palm Beach Post, covering high school sports, major college sports, professional tennis and the NBA. She taught sports reporting as an adjunct professor at the University of Colorado for four years. She is a past president and chairperson of the Association for Women in Sports Media (AWSM). In 2022, AWSM honored her with the organization’s Ann Miller Service Award.
