Dillon Clark spent countless car rides listening to legendary Pittsburgh Penguins broadcaster Mike Lange. Now Clark is following his idol into hockey play-by-play. An STAA member, Clark is the new VP of Media Relations and voice of the Carolina Thunderbirds of the FHL.
“It’s exactly what I had hoped to do after college,” Clark smiles. “This is the sport I know the best and enjoy calling the most. The additional duties of the job, like media relations and social media management, will allow me to add more tools to my toolbox and make me a more well-rounded professional.”
Clark credits Lange for fueling his hockey passion. “His love for the game and for the team was infectious,” Clark recalls. “On the TV side, I always loved when the Penguins were on national TV because we all knew what that meant – a Doc Emrick call. If Mike Lange made me fall in love with the game, Doc made me fall in love with calling it.”
Referred to STAA
A recent graduate of the University of South Carolina, Clark called Gamecock hockey for SGTV. He joined STAA in March. “I had heard about STAA here and there throughout my early days in college, but the two people who really pushed me to join were 2014 Jim Nantz Award winner Kevin Fitzgerald and fellow South Carolina alum [and STAA member] Brett Williams. I have been fortunate enough to call both of them mentors through my years in college.”
Job Market Makeover
Revising his job market approach was among the first things Clark did after joining STAA. “I really took a hard look at my resume and demo tapes in the weeks leading up to submitting an application,” he remembers. “The guidelines on the STAA website made me realize just how cluttered and ill-worded my resume was. I shortened it immensely and reworked a lot of the wording.”
Clark also realized his demo tape was too highlights-driven. “I added more continuous game samples, and I believe those continuous calls were an enormous factor in my selection [by Carolina]. My interviewers noted that they could hear I was a student of the game – that doesn’t come through in highlights.”
A door opens
The Carolina opportunity opened when their former VP of Media Relations and STAA member Drew Blevins accepted a job with the Fayetteville MarksMen of the SPHL. STAA members were notified of the Thunderbirds opening in a job leads email. It was not published on the public STAA job board. Now, the Thunderbirds job is his.
“It’s exactly what I’ve had in mind over the last four years,” Clark grins.