We were lucky to catch up with Jo’el Steven Rouse recently and have shared our conversation below.

Jo’el Steven, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s talk about innovation. What’s the most innovative thing you’ve done in your career?

Hahaha, Well that’s VERY easy for me to answer! I launched to my knowledge one of the nation’s Very first comprehensive print sports magazines which was ahead of the curve and trend setting.

What I mean by that is we brainstormed our concept for a community sports publication using a coverage strategy that’s increasingly popular now. But wasn’t being done 10, 15 or 20 years ago.

I spent nearly 10 years working for big, mainstream sports media outlets across six states. Three coasts. NYC, Chicago, Seattle and Houston, both newspapers and magazines plus internships with APSE and the U.S. Olympic Committee.

What I discovered was predictably high school, college and pro superstars dominated coverage. Everyone loves a championship, right? But in prioritizing story-first in coverage approach, I witnessed how easily today’s high school stars became yesterday’s news and were falling off coverage maps simply by leaving home to go away to college. For those who continued to compete in D-1 sports, using the Houston Chronicle in a one newspaper town as example, none of the thousands of homegrown collegiate student athletes who crisscrossed the country. Ivy League? Power 5? HBCUs, etc? Virtually none got followup coverage from The Chronicle unless they won big championships, returned home for let’s say a noteworthy NFL game or if they showed up on a police blotter lol.

Well, I knew from direct experience as a young high school sports reporter just how many didn’t fit such narrow news coverage but no less had incredibly compelling stories as college student athletes be it as the No.2 guard on Harvard’s basketball team. Or the star swimmer for Navy or the unsung local pitcher making All-American at Michigan or UCLA.

So with inOtherWordz Magazine we essentially created a lane for those athletes to remain on local sports pages and not disappear with distance. We always created a staple; NCAA, NFL and MLB Watch Lists were readers can Annually track the thousands of local high school grads still playing collegiately and professionally. Overseas as well as for the Armed Forces.

Let’s just say you’d be surprised just in Greater Houston how many print media, websites, TV and radio stations caught wind of what we’ve done for 15 years+ now and began publishing in some cases carbon copies of our product. Difference in quality, of course. Annnnnd we actually put in the time for phone interviews, covershoots and the depth research required to present authentic journalism.

Like I said, this was cutting edgeband almost non existent when we launched. It’s only become standard in local sports media maybe over the past seven years. But I proudly consider our brainchild innovative and forcing I guess you could say our competitors to be more comprehensive in their coverage models.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

I’m a proud native of Indianapolis, Indiana and a 2001 graduate of Indiana University Ernie Pyle School of Journalism. I’ve been active in sports journalism and sports writing since first playing around on my parents computer at 14. Took my first official journalism class my junior year of high school, first semester. Was writing for my high school’s newspaper, The Northern Lights at North Central High (a school of 4,000) by second semester and was high school sports editor by senior year. I went to college knowing I wanted to study journalism and venture into the newspaper industry professionally. While I had a great, great time as a college intern and stringer covering Big Ten football and basketball for two publications before graduation, I knew entrepreneurship was my eventual next level. Something my parents (happily married 50 years this July) always encouraged.

I came down to Texas straight from college, working a Hearst Newspapers post graduate fellowship. Fell in love with the Laidback Texas vibe and the City of Houston. I bounced around the country for a good five years taking various newsroom jobs. My last at a suburban Chicago AP sports bureau, I’d had my fill of industry newsroom politics which detracted from my passion writing, editing and covering live sports.

College football fans will remember Vince Young and UT winning the national championship that January 2006. I actually brainstormed my concept for inOtherWordz watching him win and thinking what coverage limitations he’d face with Houston media simply by being drafted by an NFL team taking him away from home in Houston.

I’d quit my job in Chicago within nine months while fleshing out the magazine, packed up my ride and moved back to Houston to launch on nothing more than vision, ambition, Faith and passion.

All this time later, that leap is still my proudest accomplishment. Hopefully readers, potential clients and sponsors can feel the vibrancy of my story, my drive and get the sense why small business is so important. Why the quest to be different and independent remain significant to journalism and why Bigger (as in bigger media outlets) doesn’t always mean better.

I’m probably closing in on 20-25 local media outlets who’ve directly ripped off ideas and features and coverage ideas off of our original content. It used to Really make me angry. But the flip side is seeing others already making wide profits take from inOtherWordz? Lol it’s reassuring We’re doing something right! Something creative, worthwhile and strong enough to last.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Whewwwwww. Here goes lol! My original vision for inOtherWordz watching the surge in print costs in the late 2000s and the changing ad landscape was to transition to using sponsorships to fully cover print costs in exchange for in store distribution. A big name Outdoor Sporting Goods corporate was the target.

We pitched this partnership with them for seven straight years, going further and further in their vetting process toward approval each time. Then came the eighth year, 2016.

By this time a rival big chain Sporting Goods brand first moved into Texas. So this time pitching this partnership, I was strategic in pointing out that now that this corporation had a direct competitor in our market our partnership for printing support in exchange for in store distribution of a niche community sports magazine made perfect sense! To stay competitive and give customers extra incentive to remain loyal. Fool proof plan, I thought.

So months pass and pass and pass. Our sponsorship pitch status which is visible in the company’s online portal remains unchanged. Well the process assures a final reply even in rejection within roughly six months. Our months turn into a year. Into 2017 and then well into 2018. Hungh? No change.

Then August comes. On a morning cover run, I stumble upon a “rival” local sports magazine. One that had been stealing ideas and content from us a good 5 years at that point. I come upon this magazine and notice anew in the top upper right hand corner: they’re suddenly sponsored by the very Apparel company we’d been pitching to! And the magazine is free of charge, complimentary to customers.

That moment literally was the most painful in my career. Having built inOtherWordz from scratch, at one point working two other jobs just to keep it going.

YOU make the call if this development between this rival magazine suddenly in bed with this very Sporting Goods company we’d pitched this partnership idea was coincidence or happenstance?

If there was a soul snatching movement I almost quit, that was it. But we dusted ourselves off, I’m still fighting to see my magazine’s rise to fruition four years later. You might say with added incentive to succeed financially.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

Definitely consistency and staying engaged. The internet and social media in my opinion have created this aura of pseudo journalism where anyone with photoshop and a microphone can opine and call it news, media, coverage or some such.

The one thing that’s true blue in my journalism roots are talking to people. Source building and publishing original content from first hand accounts and research gathered organically.

Whether its by in person interaction on photoshoots of any of the now thousands of phone interviews conducted long distance with our college student athletes in season, It’s humbled me to hear how many are in awe and grateful that someone from back home remembers them? Or is keeping up with their pursuits? AND thinks enough to take the time to call long distance for interviews.

We’ve had a few publishing cycles now where student athletes who’ve graduated and moved beyond sports are still in touch! But for new coverage opps since we still indulge in stories of former college football players started businesses or in positions of community leadership. Or even just in communication following more of our stories and sharing updates. You don’t make genuine connections behind a keyboard and even comparing some of our coverage with bigger outlets, when they don’t make the investment in direct coverage it shows! It’s also what keeps the inOtherWordz brand relevant.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.magcloud.com/browse/magazine/103778
• Instagram: @iowsports
• Other: E: [email protected]

Image Credits
Credit inOtherWorz Houston