Years ago, I broadcast a high school football game in the worst conditions imaginable for a broadcaster.
Dense, impossible to see through fog.
At kickoff, the fog was hanging threateningly low over the field. By the second half, I couldn’t see fans sitting five rows in front of the press box, much less the field or even the sidelines.
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The first time I broadcast football play-by-play without an analyst was 1989, McPherson (KS) High School versus Ark City. For a reason I don’t remember, my regular analyst was unavailable that night. What I do remember is what I felt.
Sheer. Terror.
At that point, my football broadcast experience was limited to a handful of games. Carrying a two-hour broadcast by myself seemed impossible. I was as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. As it turns out, the things I learned that night carried me though the rest of my football play-by-play career.
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Broadcasting consistently with the same play-by-play analyst helps your games sound great. You can anticipate when your analyst is going to speak and he knows when you need to have the mike back.
Unfortunately, working consistently with the same play-by-play analyst is more the exception than the rule, especially in the early stages of a broadcasting career.
Here are four tips to instantly help your play-by-play analyst sound great.
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Memorizing play-by-play rosters can be hard. Most of us aren’t Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man.
For those of us who can’t remember what we ate for breakfast this morning, here are seveal techniques you can try for memorizing play-by-play rosters. There were initially seven but we’ve updated the post to add more:
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Football play-by-play season is back!
I’ve put together a collection of resources that will help you make this your best season yet.
Molly Fletcher is one of the few women in the world of sports agents.
When she was a guest on the Brian Buffini Show podcast, she shared about her days of trying to break into the industry. She told Brian, “My goal at every meeting was to get them to like me enough and respect me enough to either help me or hire me.”
Apply that approach to your sports broadcasting career.
Ask employers for advice, not jobs.
Asking for a job puts an employer on the spot. Asking for advice puts them in the spotlight.
Don’t ask for a job. Ask for advice, and you’ll present yourself as ambitious rather than needy.
“They’re strong, but they all sound the same.” That’s what a network television executive told an agent who had just presented a group of sportscasters.
The sportscasting job market is undergoing a seismic shift: personality over polish.
I recently read a book written by former Philadelphia Eagle turned magician, Jon Dorenbos. It’s titled Life Is Magic: My Inspiring Journey from Tragedy to Self-Discovery.
If you’re not familiar with Jon through his football career, you may have seen him on America’s Got Talent. What makes his story unique is that when Jon was about twelve years old, his father killed his mother. The book is about Jon’s lifelong journey of forgiving his father and conquering the challenges that have come with his unique life circumstances.
One of Jon’s habits will be especially beneficial to sportscasters looking to advance their careers:
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Do you know what’s scary? Calling a girl for the first time to ask for a date. Do you know what else is scary? Calling three hours of baseball by yourself.
When our former president Ronald Reagan was a sportscaster in Iowa, he called baseball by himself, and he wasn’t even at the ball park. The news ticker would tell him what each batter did, but it wouldn’t give details of the at-bats. Reagan had to fill in those details using his imagination.
If Ronald Reagan could excel at calling baseball solo, you can too.
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My parents gave me a lot of advice when I was growing up. Much of it I ignored, thinking they were wrong or that I simply knew more than them. Sometimes, though, when a coach or the parent of a friend gave me the same advice, I ran with it because it came from a different voice. Trying to help our members at STAA is sometimes the same way.
I have preached ‘til I’m blue in the face that cookie-cutter cover letters – form letters – do not work in the job market. Alas, not all of our members at STAA respect the message. I received the following email this week from the Program Director at a one of the nation’s most prominent sports radio stations.
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