How Student Creators Are Redefining Athletics at Zionsville Community High School

Senior Elliot Huibregtse-Traenkle and the growing student media class are proving you don’t need to be an athlete to be essential to Eagle sports. Their creativity, leadership, and storytelling are elevating visibility, building community, and transforming how ZCHS athletics is experienced.

When Zionsville Community High School (ZCHS) senior Elliot Huibregtse-Traenkle steps onto a field as part of the student media team, he doesn’t lace up cleats or jog to the warm-up line. He raises a camera. And in that position, from inside the game to just outside of it, Elliot has found a place on a new team.

Today he serves, along with peer Sam Black, as the executive director of the ZCHS Sports Media Team, a growing student-run program that has quickly transformed how the high school celebrates and shares the stories of its athletes. Fueled by creativity and curiosity, the media students have earned a place on the field, spotlighting Eagle athletics from a whole new angle.

Finding His Lens

As a soccer player, Elliot first picked up a camera to photograph his own team. What followed was a fast-moving sequence: volunteering on the broadcast team at his church, purchasing his first personal camera, editing his early attempts, and slowly discovering that the view through a lens held a creative thrill.

What started as an interest in still photography quickly expanded into a video passion: first soccer, then football, and eventually cross-country, basketball, track, and more. When his videos started appearing on the athletics Instagram account, they took off: 16,000 views on one recap, 30,000 on another. Students shared, commented, and wanted more.

And Elliot kept learning.

Building a Program From the Ground Up

When ZCHS Athletic Director Josh Larsh began assembling a team to take ZCHS's social media presence to the next level, Elliot’s name came up again and again.

Soon, a small group of students realized they weren’t running a club, they were building a curriculum. Over the summer, Elliot, classmate Sam Black, and a handful of returning members met with ZCHS teacher-sponsor Lauren Wagner to design a full academic course: expectations, structure, workflow, media day procedures, student roles, content strategy, and plans for growth.

This year, the class launched officially...with 26 students.

Students now operate on sport-specific teams. A designated team lead assigns photographers, graphic designers, editors, and upload managers for each event. Games require hours on the sidelines followed by late-night editing. And the work never really stops; sports run year-round, and the class operates like a newsroom.

 “A Seat No One Else Gets”

 For Elliot, capturing sports never gets old.

That creativity shows. In the last 30 days alone, the ZCHS Athletics’ Instagram account logged more than 200,000 interactions. The visibility of student-athletes has exploded, something Larsh attributes directly to the students’ commitment and drive.

And students have noticed too. Athletes know who’s filming, who’s editing, and who’s likely to capture the types of moments that end up in highlight reels. Sideline anticipation is now part of the ZCHS experience.

Follow ZCHS Sports Media Content on Instagram
@zchseagles

More Than a Class, More Than a Team

What Elliot and peers have built is not simply a media team. It’s proof that you don’t have to score touchdowns or run miles to belong in athletics.

As Larsh puts it, “This program works because you can be part of a team, even a sports team, without being a player. There are so many roles behind the scenes that matter just as much.”

The skills students gain go far beyond visual content. They encompass:

• Leadership
• Time management
• Communication systems
• Handling feedback
• Creative problem-solving
• Meeting deadlines
• Working under pressure

Whether a student wants to be a pilot, a teacher, a doctor, or yes, a collegiate creative media intern, Larsh says experience in this program translates anywhere.

A Legacy Already in Motion

As a senior, Elliot is keenly aware that his biggest responsibility is not just the videos he creates and photography he captures now, it’s preparing the next team to take his place.

Next year’s leadership group has already been identified. Underclassmen have been trained. Even rising eighth graders are showing promise.

And Elliot, who plans to pursue aviation while continuing video production as a side business, sees the media program as one of the most meaningful parts of his time at ZCHS.

The hours, the editing sessions, the travel, the late-night DMs from friends asking for photos...it’s all worth it, he says, because of where he’s gotten to stand.