Zack Carpenter is an award-winning sports writer, editor, photographer and business owner who has experience on nearly every level and platform of the sports journalism industry.
Zack is the owner and publisher of Inside Nebraska, a multi-platform digital sports media company (website, video, podcast, social media) and core member of a national network of 100 team-specific college sports websites operated by Rivals.com and Yahoo.
Zack has turned Inside Nebraska into one of the most respected and highest-read sites in the network despite being the youngest owner and publisher at Rivals when he initially signed. Earning him that reputation is a wide range of skills in business operations, staff recruiting, team management and content strategy – in addition to the traditional journalism skills of news judgment, ethics, reporting, interviewing, editing, photography and a strong set of fundamentals.
He got his professional start as the sports editor of a weekly newspaper in Illinois, a high school sports reporter at a daily newspaper in Connecticut and then a beat writer/photographer covering Ohio State football and recruiting for multiple media companies in Ohio.
Zack has covered and photographed three College Football Playoff games (the 2021 CFP National Championship Game in Miami, plus the 2020 and 2021 CFP national semifinal games in Arizona and New Orleans), in addition to photographing and covering games in The Big House for the OSU-Michigan rivalry, The Horseshoe in Columbus, several Big Ten and NCAA Tournament games in multiple cities, the McDonald’s All-American games at the United Center in Chicago and Kentucky basketball at Rupp Arena.
He has chronicled the journeys of football and basketball players at programs such as Oregon, UConn, Illinois and Cal, interviewed Kentucky’s John Calipari and UConn’s Dan Hurley, covered an FCS national championship game, and he has spent a day with Adrian Wojnarowski, being granted rare all-access at ESPN headquarters in Bristol, Connecticut for a behind-the-scenes look at the NBA senior insider one week before the draft and one day after he broke the news of Kevin Durant’s torn Achilles in Game 5 of the 2019 NBA Finals.
Far above all of those experiences, though, Zack will always consider his most cherished career accomplishment to have come in Connecticut, where he befriended a local star athlete’s father shortly after his move. Zack wrote a feature story upon discovering that the father was battling a terminal illness and in desperate need of an organ transplant. That story led directly to a massive influx of organ donors in the area and, ultimately, is what led to the father receiving the organ transplant that saved his life.
Zack is a Journalism graduate of Illinois State University. He was a news writer, a beat writer covering football, basketball and baseball and, ultimately, the sports editor of the school's student newspaper. His four years at ISU and two years at the paper are where he says he truly laid his foundation and formed the fundamentals of journalism that he still uses to this day.
Zack is the owner and publisher of Inside Nebraska, a multi-platform digital sports media company (website, video, podcast, social media) and core member of a national network of 100 team-specific college sports websites operated by Rivals.com and Yahoo.
Zack has turned Inside Nebraska into one of the most respected and highest-read sites in the network despite being the youngest owner and publisher at Rivals when he initially signed. Earning him that reputation is a wide range of skills in business operations, staff recruiting, team management and content strategy – in addition to the traditional journalism skills of news judgment, ethics, reporting, interviewing, editing, photography and a strong set of fundamentals.
He got his professional start as the sports editor of a weekly newspaper in Illinois, a high school sports reporter at a daily newspaper in Connecticut and then a beat writer/photographer covering Ohio State football and recruiting for multiple media companies in Ohio.
Zack has covered and photographed three College Football Playoff games (the 2021 CFP National Championship Game in Miami, plus the 2020 and 2021 CFP national semifinal games in Arizona and New Orleans), in addition to photographing and covering games in The Big House for the OSU-Michigan rivalry, The Horseshoe in Columbus, several Big Ten and NCAA Tournament games in multiple cities, the McDonald’s All-American games at the United Center in Chicago and Kentucky basketball at Rupp Arena.
He has chronicled the journeys of football and basketball players at programs such as Oregon, UConn, Illinois and Cal, interviewed Kentucky’s John Calipari and UConn’s Dan Hurley, covered an FCS national championship game, and he has spent a day with Adrian Wojnarowski, being granted rare all-access at ESPN headquarters in Bristol, Connecticut for a behind-the-scenes look at the NBA senior insider one week before the draft and one day after he broke the news of Kevin Durant’s torn Achilles in Game 5 of the 2019 NBA Finals.
Far above all of those experiences, though, Zack will always consider his most cherished career accomplishment to have come in Connecticut, where he befriended a local star athlete’s father shortly after his move. Zack wrote a feature story upon discovering that the father was battling a terminal illness and in desperate need of an organ transplant. That story led directly to a massive influx of organ donors in the area and, ultimately, is what led to the father receiving the organ transplant that saved his life.
Zack is a Journalism graduate of Illinois State University. He was a news writer, a beat writer covering football, basketball and baseball and, ultimately, the sports editor of the school's student newspaper. His four years at ISU and two years at the paper are where he says he truly laid his foundation and formed the fundamentals of journalism that he still uses to this day.