Alex Carpenter’s phone buzzed the morning after he returned from Italy. A text from his grandfather in South Florida lit up the screen: a photo of a USA TODAY sports page beside a March Madness bracket. Under the headline, his grandfather had circled one detail—Alex’s byline.
Carpenter hadn’t known how far his stories would travel when he boarded a plane for Italy, ready to take hands-on reporting to the global stage. A senior at the School of Journalism and Media at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, he was part of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to cover the 2026 Winter Paralympic Games in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo—a partnership with the USA TODAY Network that placed students on the international stage alongside professional reporters.
From Rocky Top to Milan: A Hands-On Reporting Experience
Preparation began long before the opening ceremony. Carpenter and nine other students, under the guidance of School of Journalism and Media professors Erin Whiteside and Nick Geidner, spent the first half of the spring semester enrolled in Sports Media and the Paralympics—a special topics course blending classroom learning with real-world assignments.
“Dr. Whiteside told us we’d be on the frontlines of capturing adaptive sports,” Carpenter recalls. “She and Dr. Geidner prepped us with story ideas, helped us develop our angles, and encouraged us every step of the way.”
What they couldn’t fully prepare students for were the long, demanding days covering the Games and the pressure of meeting tight deadlines to get their stories published. Students spent the week covering para ice hockey in Milan, then traveling to Cortina d’Ampezzo in the Dolomites to report on wheelchair curling, para alpine skiing, and para snowboarding. It was, as Carpenter puts it, “the busiest spring break of my life,” but also life-changing: “To be there at the center of the adaptive sport movement—telling stories that wouldn’t be told if not for our curiosity—was incredible.”
Telling Stories That Matter
Carpenter arrived in Italy with features on curling ready to go but soon found himself publishing more than 10 stories for USA TODAY, including snowboarding profiles, curling coverage, and multiple hockey pieces—one of them centered on Team USA’s sled hockey team winning its fifth gold medal in a row.
Being one of a handful of American student journalists credentialed at the Games brought a real sense of responsibility.
“We were representing not just ourselves, but our university—and we wanted to provide these elite-level Paralympic athletes with the coverage they deserve and be a part of the change advancing representation,” Carpenter says. He also noticed how many media outlets focused solely on the athletes’ disabilities; he and his cohort set out to spotlight their athletic excellence, instead.
Working as a unit was essential: “Our team was integral to my experience,” Carpenter noted. “Countless hours outside event venues—without that support system of other students and our professors, it would have been extremely difficult to keep going.”
A Byline That Bridges Generations
Still, nothing matched what happened once he was back home.
The morning after returning from Italy, Carpenter woke up to that text from his grandfather,who had picked up a paper at the local grocery store for his March Madness bracket, flipped to the sports section, and found Alex’s story about Team USA sled hockey. His byline sat right there alongside national headlines.
“For my family, who followed along digitally while I was abroad, seeing my name in print made it all feel real,” Carpenter says. “It was special,not just for me, but for everyone who supported me.” Learning that three of his articles ran nationally underscored just how far UT’s hands-on opportunities could reach.
Advice for Future Paralympic Storytellers
Carpenter calls that week covering the Paralympic Games in Italy “the most rewarding” of his life as he spent it reporting alongside international journalists interviewing elite athletes, standing on Olympic ice after gold medals were won, and even finally finding the best pizza of the trip on his last day in Milan.
“I learned more about being a reporter that week than during most of my time as an undergrad,” he adds. “That’s the power of hands-on experience and taking advantage of as many opportunities as you can with the College of Communication and Information.”
He also credits being inspired by previous cohorts. Reading about UT students covering the Paris Paralympic Games in 2024 in the school newsletter drove him to apply, and now he will serve as inspiration for future Paralympic project cohorts. “Just do it, even if you think you’re not good enough,” Alex shared. “You never know what might happen or how this experience can change your life and open countless doors for your future.”
Through the Paralympics Project at CCI, students like Alex Carpenter don’t just cover international sporting events, they shape stories that reach across continents and generations. For Carpenter, journalism became more than a potential career path:it became a bridge home.