My Dream Job in Sports Journalism

 Friday, August 23, 2024

   My dream job would be to be a play-by-play announcer for an NCAA Division I or II program. Later, I plan to build myself up as a national radio or television football and basketball play-by-play announcer. 

    What I am doing to achieve this dream job is improving my work on-air at/ play-by-play at WMUL by doing play-by-play for multiple sports including basketball, football, soccer, volleyball, baseball, and softball. While doing these games, I also critique each broadcast to see where I need to improve on every broadcast and improve my demo reel. 

    I am also a beat reporter for WMUL to expand my horizons and build connections. I was the beat reporter for the last three semesters for Marshall track & field and cross country. I am now the current beat reporter for Marshall football and plan on reporting women’s basketball. 

    I have connected with many local sports journalists in the area by going to Marshall Athletics press conferences and working alongside them with different projects, such as Luke Creasy, Tim Stephens, Jason Philyaw, and Keith Morehouse through Marshall athletics news conferences. 

    I also worked with Paul Swann at Kindred Communications and built many connections this past summer by being his intern and scheduling guests on his daily podcast. I worked with the Marshall Athletics Strategic Communications department along with many high school and college coaches in the local area and nationally, as well as with sportscasters from Stony Brook University and Louisiana Tech University. 

    To further pursue my sportscasting career, I plan to join the National Sports Media Association and the Sportscasters Talent of America. I aim to attend different conferences and events held by the organization to meet and connect with people in the sports industry and have them give me feedback and critiques on my work.

    What inspired me to pursue the dream of sportscasting was the idea of watching sports games and getting paid for it. I have also been a sports nerd my entire life and have always wanted to work in calling sporting events and telling what is happening because sports has always been the only thing I follow.

    The person I idolized the most growing up in the sportscasting field was Steve Cotton, the “Voice of the Thundering Herd.” I grew up listening to him, and I always thought he had the coolest job of all time, being the golden voice of the Thundering Herd. 

    I dream of being the voice that generations of college fans of a specific program would grow up with and inspire the next generation of sports fans to become sportscasters. 

    At the national level, I looked up guys such as Jim Nantz, Kevin Burkhardt, and Kevin Harlan on television. For national radio, Dan Hoard “The Voice of the Cincinnati Bengals” and Marty Brenneman “The Voice of the Cincinnati Reds” as idols because of how well they perfected their craft and brought excitement and energy into every call they made and that they had the greatest jobs ever by working on television and radio for my favorite professional sports teams.