(Thank you to STAA member John Fricke for this guest post. John co-hosts The Morning Show with John and Hugh on Atlanta’s 92.9 The Game. He’s also worked for CNN and Fox Sports Net.)
One of the most important truths of the sports broadcasting business is to fully grasp that no job is ‘beneath’ you.
I had 10 years as a national anchor at CNN when I wound up as the lead anchor at the news outlet for SportsChannel in New York. The division folded a year after I arrived.
At 31 I was on the street for the first time. Simultaneously, the 1991 Iraq war broke out and news directors coast-to-coast stopped paying attention to sports.
Stepping back
Nothing for 5 months. I had one call, from the 82nd market for a job earning less than a quarter of what I made at CNN and in NY. I took the job at WRCB in Chattanooga just to get working.
During the 5 years I was at that station I found I really liked it. Yes it was not what I had planned for as a career track, like going from the Majors to Single-A. Yet that job taught me that I could be very happy with a smaller slice and a fulfilling life.
It also would lead to future success and another crack at the big time at Fox Sports Net in Los Angeles.
Making the most of it
I can’t preach loudly enough that a job is only what you make of it and what you make of it is what you make yourself into. Professional growth goes hand-in-hand with personal growth and no one can grow faster and stronger without being challenged to produce better quality, even with lesser support.
The old line about New York is, “If you can make it there you’ll make it anywhere.”
The truth is if you make it anywhere, you can repeat that and make it everywhere.
