Words are powerful things. Although sports are games of action, words, whether spoken or written, do a remarkable job of capturing the excitement, drama, triumph, and sometimes tragedy of athletic events. If you have the gift of bringing action to life through your writing or your voice, think about a career in reporting or announcing. And if you’re handy with a camera, a career in sports photography might be for you.
ANNOUNCING VS. BROADCASTING—WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?
Do you have a way with words and a voice that makes people stop and listen to you? Is your vocabulary colorful, dramatic, and visual? Then think about a career as a sports broadcaster.
Sports broadcasters (or sportscasters for short) work for radio and television stations, writing and delivering footage of current sports news. Sportscasters might appear on the nightly news or on special broadcasts of sporting events. Along with providing play-by-play descriptions during a game or event, sportscasters often appear on air before and after the event, interviewing coaches and athletes and providing highlights of the action.
Sports announcers, on the other hand, work for teams as the official voice of a team. If you’ve ever attended a sporting event, you’ve heard someone make pregame announcements, player introductions, and a detailed description of the game, including who has scored or incurred a penalty, who is substituting for another player, or when there is a timeout. These announcers keep everyone informed.
SPOTLIGHT
Walt Frazier: A Star on the Court and in the Broadcasting Booth
During the early 1970s, few players were as admired as Walt “Clyde” Frazier. The guard for the New York Knicks had style both on and off the court and was especially known for his flashy talent at stealing the ball and setting up plays. “It’s Clyde’s ball,” one of his teammates, Willis Reed, said to Sport magazine. “He just lets us play with it once in a while.”
Frazier was born in 1945 and grew up playing basketball on the broken-down playground court of his segregated school in Atlanta, Georgia. He moved north to attend Southern Illinois University on a basketball scholarship. Frazier quickly became one of the best college basketball players in the country. He was selected by the New York Knicks as the fifth pick in the 1967 NBA draft. In 1970 and 1973, Frazier led the team to their only NBA championships.
Frazier retired from basketball in 1979. He was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1987 and named to the list of 50 Greatest Players in NBA History in 1996. After living out of the country for a few years, he returned to New York in 1989 to try a new career: broadcasting. Frazier became a commentator for Knicks’ broadcasts on the MSG Networks. His language was as flashy as his playing had been, and soon the air was filled with “Clyde-isms”—clever rhyming phrases that perfectly described the action, such as “dishing and swishing,” “duping and hooping,” and “bounding and astounding.” Through his broadcast work, Frazier gained a new generation of fans.
Prepare to Be on the Air
For many sports broadcasters, the day starts long before an event or interview. You need to know what you’re talking about, so you spend most of your time doing research and gathering background information on subjects. For a sportscaster, those five minutes on the air are usually preceded by hours of work.
As an announcer, you do most of your work during the game or event, but you need to prepare as well. Announcers need a strong knowledge of the game, its history, its rules, and its statistics so you can keep the audience informed and provide background information for what’s going on down on the field or court. You need to be able to create visual pictures, especially if you are being broadcast over the radio, so an ability to speak clearly, think fast, and be creative is a big plus.
How do you prepare for a job in sports broadcasting or announcing? As with most careers, it’s best to start while you’re in school. High school has many classes that will prepare you. Most important are classes that will improve your speaking and writing skills, such as English, speech, journalism, drama, and even foreign languages. Most broadcasters have a four-year college degree, usually in communications or journalism. During both high school and college, look for opportunities in your school and community, such as writing for the school or local paper or announcing on a school or local radio or television station. Of course, you should know sports inside and out as well and have an outgoing personality, a great memory, a good speaking voice, and a sense of fun and adventure.
Most sportscasters are employed by television networks or radio stations. You may reach an audience of millions or a few thousand, depending on the market. Announcers can work for universities, high schools, and professional teams in both the minor and major leagues.
Many sportscasters audition by making an audiotape or videotape of themselves describing a particular sporting event and sending this tape to potential employees. Try this for yourself. Watch a game live or on TV and create a video or audiotape of yourself broadcasting the action as it happens. You may not use this tape to audition for anything, but it is great practice—and a lot of fun too!
A Huge Range of $$$
Salaries for sports announcers and broadcasters vary widely, and that’s an understatement! Announcers for a small minor league team or at school sporting events might be paid by the game. Full-time announcers and broadcasters have a salary, and those in small markets make a lot less money than broadcasters on national networks or those working in big-city markets such as New York or Los Angeles. If you throw former pro athletes and sports celebrities—many of whom go on to announcing careers after their playing days are over—into the salary mix, the sky’s the limit. Many celebrity broadcasters bring home millions of dollars a year.
Name: Adam Bjaranson
Job: Studio host, Portland Trail Blazers; television sports anchor and reporter
Why do you love sports?
Sports have always been a huge part of my life. I grew up in the Bay Area, California, and was quickly introduced to all sports. I played soccer as a child and attended many professional sporting events in Oakland/San Francisco. My dad was the major influence. He didn’t force any sport on me, but his passion for the A’s (Oakland’s baseball team), Raiders (Oakland’s football team), Warriors (Oakland’s basketball team), and Seals (San Francisco’s ice hockey team) was second to none. That has stuck with me to this day. While I’ve worked in the sports profession for a couple decades now, I’m still as much of a fan today as I was in my preteen years.
Why do you think it’s important for young people to get involved in sports?
You always hear about sports being a diversion from some of the more serious things that kids today take part in. Sports are great on so many social levels. You build fast friendships that can lead to future business relationships. Plus, competition is healthy in helping mold kids. Being part of a team is great, but individual sports are also. A motto that I’ve always lived with in the sports profession is this: It’s not how good you are—it’s how good you want to be. That tends to keep the fire burning. After all, everybody—whether in sports or not—wants to be liked, right?
What is a typical day like for you?
I need to know as much about the fifteen players (and their opponents) as possible. You can never be too informed. Since I only work on game nights (yes, that’s only eighty-two nights a year), I want to be as prepared as possible. I peruse the game notes for any useful information, meet with the show producer, and decide what information is best for our viewers. My partner on the show is a former Trail Blazers guard, Michael Holton. He handles analyst duties. I like to always have bullet points in front of me. Some nights, we’ll meet with season ticket holders prior to our show for a Q&A session. Also, there are quite a few team functions that the team requests we attend. This past season also allowed me to do some radio work and host our online magazine show, Trail Blazers Courtside. The radio show, Trail Blazers Fifth Quarter, is a caller-driven show where fans can call in and talk about the game, ask questions of us, etc.
What education did you pursue to get a job in this career?
I got a bachelor of science degree in speech communication from Portland State University. I also took some theater classes. These both helped me become a better public speaker. When you are in the public eye, there are always going to be schools, charities, etc., that would like you to speak at various events.
Internships were the best way for me to learn. There is no experience like experience itself. Fortunately for me, I was able to work at KPTV as an intern in the sports department long before I was hired there. It was invaluable to me. So I always encourage anybody to find those internships. They are great tools to have.
Success is where preparation and opportunity meet.
Bobby Unser
AUTOMOBILE RACER AND COMMENTATOR
What work or volunteer experiences helped you gain experience and contacts as you moved up in your career?
While playing sports in high school, I always wanted to become a professional baseball player. But the truth was I wasn’t that good. So I decided if I couldn’t play sports, I wanted to be able to talk about sports. It was then that I decided this was my true calling in my professional life. So I attended Portland State University and got my degree in speech communication. After that I decided to move back to California and fine-tune this career. I began as an intern with the Golden State Warriors alongside the team’s radio play-by-play guy (Tim Roye). I did this while going through the College of Extended Learning at San Francisco State University (SFSU). While in the sports broadcasting program, I was able to do play-by-play of the school’s basketball and baseball teams. I also did stories at Raiders Training Camp and a new ad campaign for the Oakland A’s. These were all the teams I grew up loving. I was hooked. From there I put together demo tapes. And boy, are those fun to look back on these days.
Sport is a preserver of health.
Hippocrates
GREEK PHYSICIAN
I was very determined to eventually find my way back to Portland, Oregon. So after sending out about twenty tapes for various openings across the country, I landed my first job as the sports reporter at a small CBS news bureau (KCBY) in Coos Bay, Oregon. Sadly, the money was very little. You’ve got to pay your dues, as they say, but after three months cutting my teeth, I couldn’t keep doing it financially. I moved back to the Bay Area. After seven months of trying to get back into television, I got a call from the news director at KVEW-TV (an ABC affiliate) in the Tri-Cities, Washington (the towns of Pasco, Richland, and Kennewick). They had an opening for a weekend sports anchor. The news director had one question for me: “Why should I take a chance on you after you left your last job after just three months?” The only thing I could tell him was this: “Giving my word is the only thing I have right now, but I won’t disappoint you. And you have my word on that.” Thankfully, he gave me that shot. I stayed there until October of 2001.
The thing you learn from sports—setting goals, being part of a team, confidence—that’s invaluable. It’s not about trophies and ribbons. It’s about being on time for practice, accepting challenges, and being fearful of the elements.
Summer Sanders
SWIMMER AND COMMENTATOR
At that point, I felt I was seasoned enough to try getting to Portland. It would be a jump of about one hundred television markets. The only position available was as sports photographer. I was also up for a sports director job in Champaign, Illinois. So I had a decision to make. Head to Portland, taking an off-air position, or go to a market that I didn’t know a thing about. I decided to take on what was familiar to me. After three months at KPTV in Portland, I began filling in as the weekend sports anchor while a couple guys were on vacation. And the rest is, well, history. Right place at the right time. I worked at KPTV (FOX) as the weekend sports anchor from October of 2001 until December of 2004.
Then KPTV was slicing back on sports and cut me down to thirty-two hours a week. Colin Cowherd (now at ESPN) was leaving his job at KGW (NBC) in Portland. That station did sports right, always had. And I loved its product, even though it was my competition then. I decided it was time to make a run at KGW. I hired an agent to get me from KPTV to KGW. That was my dream job. Plus, there was no noncompete clause in play. They could get me right away. Sure enough, things worked out and I was hired as their sports reporter. Eventually I moved into the main seat and stayed there from 2004 until 2010 when the Portland Trail Blazers recruited me away. They had a position that I felt was just to my liking: television studio host. They had me when they said, “You get the summers off.” Who wouldn’t want that? I helped launch their digital network too, hosting a show each morning. Then on game nights, my role was to host the thirty-minute pregame, halftime, and postgame shows. It’s the position I still hold today. Dream jobs in my dream city. It doesn’t usually happen that way, but I consider myself very fortunate.
The broadcasting business is a very tight-knit fraternity. Along the way, you run into so many colleagues and former classmates. It’s imperative to never burn any bridges in this business. If you do, the word spreads like wildfire, and you’ll be at the unemployment office before you know it. My mom always taught me to treat other people like you want to be treated yourself. I have always used that trait to forge ahead in the world of broadcasting. Also, it’s best to never use the word can’t. At every stop, I’ve had the pleasure of working alongside many quality broadcasting professionals. I’ve kept them close along the way too. Some have been huge mentors to me, and even close friends. Always ask teachers and professors for references. They are the lifeblood of helping you move forward.
What’s the best thing about your job?
The best thing about my job is the people I come in contact with. It doesn’t matter if they are coworkers or viewers. It never gets old getting to talk sports with them. I always strive to do the best job possible. Being in front of hundreds of thousands each game night is a complete rush. But not nearly the rush you get from somebody who says, “I love watching your show. You do a great job.” That’s about as rewarding as it gets for me.
What’s the most challenging thing about your job?
The most challenging part of my job is still adjusting to no teleprompter. For the better part of fifteen years, that was my security blanket. The words are always there. I still try to memorize a few things, and that can get me into trouble. All of it is what comes at the top of your mind. So you have to think on the fly quite a bit. Aside from that, having summers off has turned into a challenge. I’m one of those rare breeds that just likes to work year round.
Who helped you the most in furthering your career and how?
I don’t think there was one single person who helped most, but there are two guys who gave me some perspective in how to approach this business moving forward. Dennis Patchin (KXLY-Spokane, Washington) and Val Sakovich (SFSU professor). They were always encouraging me and cheering me on. I always think of them when I think of this broadcasting path I’ve carved out. They were both instrumental in my early television years.
As a kid, did you think you would have this career when you grew up? Why or why not? What were your expectations?
Yes, I was determined to become a sportscaster in Portland. We moved to Oregon when I was eight, and I always thought that that looked like a fun job. Find something you love to do, and it will never seem like work. I never dread a single day of having to go into work. My expectations of myself are to be the best that I can be. And to this day, I’ve never felt like I’ve reached my true potential. I’m constantly striving to improve and that will likely never change.
What advice or tips can you give young people thinking of a career in your field?
The best advice is this: accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative. I fully realize that thousands of broadcasters would die to have my job. I don’t take it for granted at all. It’s turned into a profession of “it’s not what you know—it’s who you know.” So make as many contacts as possible in your chosen field. I’ve realized that people are willing to help out, as long as you are dedicated. Also, when sending out your demo reels, don’t be discouraged. Keep plugging away at it. You’ll be told no on more than one occasion. But eventually you’ll be able to achieve what seemed like the unachievable.
Do you plan to stay in your career for a long time? If not, what do you think you will do after your career is over?
I’d love nothing more than to stay in this field forever. It’s funny when I think about what I do. My job is to talk about what athletes do right or what they do wrong. That’s it. But no day is the same. There are incredible stories out there to be told. If I ever got out of this profession, they’d have to force me out. Or I’d have to win the lottery. And I’m not so sure that would even push me out.
What demands does your job put on your personal life? How do you deal with them?
In my personal life, this profession doesn’t really have a lot of challenges. I met my wonderful wife when she was a producer at KPTV, so she understands the demands. But there are times when my buddies have a golf trip planned, and I’ve got a game that night. Again, when you work just 82 nights out of 365 in a year (not including preseason or playoffs, which would make it no more than 100), life is good. Just find something you enjoy and pursue it. It’s a wonderful world once you get in. Best of luck to all the aspiring journalists out there. Whether for on camera or off, there are many creative minds that this industry craves.
WHAT IS MEDIA RELATIONS AND HOW CAN I GET A JOB IN IT?
Media relations is a field related to broadcasting. A media relations specialist combines broadcasting knowledge and ability with experience in public relations. Public relations is the art of making a person or a company look good, so media relations specialists make sure clients get good press in every medium. Basically, these specialists serve as a link between the athletes or team and the broadcasters, reporters, and other media folks who want to write about them. Media relations specialists can work for public relations agencies, sports agents, teams, and universities.
Most media relations specialists work in an office and at athletic events and media showcases. Competition for jobs in this field is stiff because it is a desirable and seemingly glamorous career.
Name: Mike Sheridan
Job: Director of Media Relations, Villanova University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Why do you love sports?
As a young person, I was attracted to the excitement and incredible performances I saw from professional and college athletes. My father is a big sports fan, and we watched a lot of games on television together. I was also fortunate to be exposed to baseball, soccer, and basketball through Little League and community recreation leagues, which further developed my interest in sports. As a player, you pick up on some of the nuances of the sport that enhances your connection to it.
Probably the biggest hook came when I attended my first professional sporting event. It was a baseball game at Shea Stadium when I was ten that I still have vivid recollections of. A year or two later, I saw my first NBA game at Madison Square Garden and loved the whole scene: the crowds, the noise, rooting for the home team. It’s a spectacle.
All these years later, that excitement is still there. Plus, in this position, I still get to be part of a team and experience all the highs and lows that come with that, even though I am not out there competing. The aspect of teamwork is very rewarding.
Why do you think it’s important for young people to get involved in sports?
To me, the most valuable thing young people get out of sports is the sense of teamwork. The best teams in any sport are often those for whom the sum is greater than the individual parts. Whenever I ask some of our alumni in different sports what they miss most about their athletic experiences, the most common answer is the camaraderie and friendships.
I also believe it’s important that young people gain an appreciation for exercise at a young age. Even if they don’t necessarily love sports, it’s extremely valuable to develop an appreciation for maintaining a healthy body—it’s incredibly helpful to create that feeling as a younger person rather than trying to build that appreciation as an adult.
What was your professional journey? How did you get to where you are today?
By the time I reached high school, it was apparent that I would not have the skill level to compete against the best of my age group in any sport. At both Albertus Magnus High School and Fordham University, though, I found a way to stay connected to sports through writing at the school paper and in college also working at the student radio station (WFUV). Those experiences helped me land a position at a national basketball and baseball publication based in Michigan when I graduated college. I spent fourteen years as a managing editor and columnist at Basketball Times and Baseball Bulletin before transitioning to the university side of things at Villanova in 1998. I have been the director of media relations in athletics since 2002, with men’s basketball and men’s soccer as my primary sports.
What is a typical day like for you?
During the months of September through April, when our athletic seasons are in full swing, the workdays are very full. The basketball team usually plays two games a week, and we have a host of other in-season events—twenty-four varsity sports with full schedules of home and road competitions, coaches’ radio shows, and banquets—that require our attention and sometimes include travel outside this area. Fortunately, we have a great media relations team.
One man practicing sportsmanship is far better than a hundred teaching it.
Knute Rockne
FOOTBALL COACH
In the summer months, when none of the university’s athletic teams are in season, the pace is more restrained. We have more time in the office and more hours to devote to long-range projects and planning.
What education did you pursue to get a job in this career? What classes were particularly helpful?
I received a communications degree from Fordham and took a number of journalism and television courses while at Rose Hill. All were helpful in some form. However, the most impactful experiences I had and contacts made came via extracurricular work at the radio station and college newspaper. There, I was exposed to the importance of deadlines and learned the basics of how to construct interesting stories.
What work or volunteer experiences helped you gain experience and contacts as you moved up in your career?
When I entered the business, I was fortunate to land at a small sports publishing company that allowed me to get a taste of every element of the business, from publishing to sales to covering events like the World Series and Final Four. I also learned layout and design, which still serves me well to this day.
I also made some valuable contacts through recreational softball. There was a press club team in Detroit that helped introduce me to members of the media in my adopted city.
What is the best thing about your job?
The best part of my job is the interaction with the student athletes and the coaches who mentor them. There is an incredible energy that comes with it and a very rewarding sense when former students return as well-rounded, successful professionals in fields in and out of athletics. You feel like you, in some small way, may have contributed to their lives.
I also like watching the games unfold, whether they take place in a packed twenty-thousand-seat arena or on a quiet field with a few dozen spectators. I enjoy seeing athletes excel and in my time at Villanova have been fortunate to watch a lot of spectacular performances.
Finally, it’s very rewarding to be part of a community like the one we have here at Villanova. The downside of working in a small company is that there is a tiny group of two to three people in your daily work area. Here, you have a wide cross section of people you come in contact with every day, and it’s a part of this that I very much appreciate.
What is the most challenging thing about your job?
Probably the management of time. The pace can be hectic when your teams are having success as you attempt to serve multiple masters in the media and internally. Those are exciting times and where all of us in this profession want to be. But they also require us to serve as a buffer so that the coaches and, most important, athletes aren’t overwhelmed by media requests. It’s important that we manage those requests so that our athletes can focus on being students too.
Who helped you the most in furthering your career and how?
The two individuals who stand out for me are Larry Donald and Jay Wright.
Larry was the man who hired me in 1984 and served as the editor and publisher of Basketball Times during my tenure there (he died in 2000). I learned valuable lessons about basketball and what it took to direct a successful business in that atmosphere. At a young age, I was afforded incredible freedom as a writer and visibility within the basketball community.
Jay Wright has been the head basketball coach at Villanova since 2001. Coach Wright is a tremendous ambassador for our university, in addition to being a winner of national and Big East coach of the year awards. His vision for his program and understanding of the full scope of our university and its athletic mission is truly impressive.
Lessons he offers to his team apply to anyone at any stage of life. He uses the term attitude to remind the athletes on his team to stay positive and upbeat—you cannot control what happens to you, but you do control how you respond to it. Being around that approach on a daily basis for twelve years has helped keep me focused on the value of remaining upbeat and enthusiastic.
There have been a number of other individuals who have been helpful too, including professors and classmates from my days at Fordham, like my friend Jimmy Smith (of Newsday); colleagues here at Villanova, like athletic director Vince Nicastro, and from Basketball Times; journalists such as Dick Weiss of the New York Daily News and Dan Wetzel of Yahoo! Sports; as well as public relations executive Ray Carson of the American Cancer Society.
As a kid, did you think you would have this career when you grew up? Why or why not? What were your expectations?
Like most sports-loving kids, I probably was more focused on what it would feel like to become a player at the highest level than what it might be like to write about sports or serve as a member of the administrative team. But I do believe that if you had told the ten-year-old me that this is where he would end up, having been able to live a life in sports, I am confident he would have been pretty thrilled.
What advice or tips can you give young people thinking of a career in your field?
The best part about a life in sports is that it features people who are truly passionate about their career. In my experience, people don’t typically fall into a career in sports as they do some others—they choose it because it thrills them.
The simplest advice I can offer to those interested in pursuing this as a career is to start wherever you can. If you aren’t an athlete, perhaps you can help a team at your school as a volunteer manager helping the coaches. Teams in junior high and high school can often use a student eager to be involved. Sometimes all you have to do is ask—the coach may have you keep score or help at practice. It won’t be glamorous, but it can be a start.
Later, that opportunity could come via an internship or a volunteer position at a student publication or radio station. It might not be in exactly the kind of sport you know best. But if you jump in with energy and enthusiasm for helping the team and organization you are a part of to succeed, the opportunity to advance will find you.
Do you plan to stay in your career for a long time? If not, what do you think you will do after your career is over?
I would hope that I have the chance to remain a part of the athletics world for years to come. I have been at it for twenty-eight years professionally and am as enthused about it now as I was in 1984.
Right now, I don’t view myself as a full-scale retirement type of person. I realize that day may come. But my hope would be to continue with some kind of active role—perhaps through freelance writing, consulting, or other forms of part-time work in athletics—into my golden years.
What demands does your job put on your personal life? How do you deal with them?
I am blessed to work at a university and basketball program that very much value the role of family. As much as possible, we are able to include our spouses—and children if you have them—in team functions and other aspects of campus life. My wife, Kristin, attends many of our home basketball games, and we have had the opportunity to bring our nephews and nieces to summer camps and give them a chance to meet some of the athletes they have seen on television. It also helps to have an understanding wife who appreciates my passion for this profession and university.
What is your salary or compensation?
I have never spent a lot of time considering how my salary compares to others in the industry. I have a position I enjoy at a great university, and that’s what matters most to me.
SPOTLIGHT
Elliott Almond: All-Around Sports Guy with a Focus on Giving Back
Elliott Almond has played sports since he can remember, but he hopes his legacy will be in giving back and in writing.
Inspired by his father, an excellent tennis player, Almond made his high school varsity team as a freshman. He lettered in basketball, tennis, cross-country, and track and field in high school, but gravitated toward beach volleyball and surfing for his teens through his thirties. In 1983, he and his friends caught a one-hundred-year swell from the island of Todos Santos off Ensenada in Baja, California. In doing so, they “discovered” one of the West Coast’s now-famous big waves. Almond is the author of the book Surfing: Mastering Waves from Basic to Intermediate, but he considers the most profound moment of his surfing career to be when he rescued a man caught in a huge surf from drowning.
A three-time nominee for the Pulitzer Prize and veteran of the Los Angeles Times, Seattle Times, and San Jose Mercury News, Almond has worked long and hard for his love of sports writing, starting in high school. As a junior he covered local sports for his small-town weekly. After accepting weekend and night assignments at various newspapers while he earned his bachelor’s degree in communications (minor in political science), he worked at the Los Angeles Times for twenty years, moving up from being a copy editor to being an investigative sports writer covering big stories on drugs before the 1984 Olympics.
He loves his job because he sees it as an honor to tell the stories people trust him with. He seeks to instill that ethic and passion in student journalists and does that in part by speaking with high school classes and through his work as co-managing editor of Mosaic, a two-week high school journalism boot camp. He and his colleagues hope to make the program a year-round nonprofit to support schools that don’t offer journalism anymore.
A WAY WITH WORDS OR IMAGES
Maybe you like to write but aren’t really interested in being on the air. That’s fine! There are plenty of opportunities to share your feelings, opinions, and knowledge about sports with the world. You can be a news reporter, a columnist, a blogger, or a book author, to name just a few career paths.
People who write about sports can work for a specific company. For example, a sports reporter might work for a newspaper—anything from the local paper to a national paper like the New York Times or USA Today. Reporters also work for magazines—again, anything from a local mag to a top market one, such as Sports Illustrated. There are also sports magazines that cater to specific sports, such as Baseball Digest. And there are sports and media websites that employ writers, columnists, and bloggers to inform and entertain their readers.
Many writers also work as freelancers. A freelancer gets assignments from different companies and is not on staff for only one company. You are paid by the article rather than receiving a salary. The benefits of freelancing are that you can make your own hours, accept projects that interest you so you can write about what you want, and work from home. The downside is that you do not have a regular income, especially at first, and you don’t receive any benefits such as health insurance or paid vacations. You are, in essence, your own boss, so you’re responsible for everything your boss would normally provide.
A writer is a spectator, looking at everything with a highly critical eye.
Bernard Malamud
WRITER
If you’re interested in photography, the employers and fields open to you are pretty similar to those for writers. Jobs are available at newspapers and magazines as well as at pro teams and at universities with large athletic departments. To prepare for this field, you’ll want to take photography and journalism courses in high school and college and get experience volunteering for your school newspaper, magazine, and yearbook. Look for opportunities in your community as well. When it comes to creative careers, you’re never too young to start honing your talent and gaining experience.
Name: Brock Landes
Age: 13
Job (when not studying!): Baseball, basketball, and football player, Murray Avenue School and Huntingdon Valley Athletics Association, Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania; blogger, www.themlbnation.com and www.MLBBOARDS.com
Dream Job: Sports broadcaster
What sports have you participated in and when?
I have been playing baseball, basketball, and football since I was very little. I have been going to sports broadcasting camp for four years.
What are you doing now in terms of education/sports participation?
I play on both school teams and township teams. I have attended Play by Play Sports Broadcasting Camp for four years. I have a YouTube channel where I post videos showing off my sports card collection, which I buy and trade through YouTube. I have also met friends from all over. I even have a friend from Guam! I have several blogs that I write on daily. I watch sports channels, mainly MLB Network, and I do research on up-and-coming players on the internet.
How did you get started in sports?
I have been hearing about sports and the arguments associated with sports since I was old enough to understand what my father was talking about. My father, a sports fanatic, introduced sports to me when I was very young. At the age of four, I began playing baseball and basketball. A few years later, football started for me. In between my sports, I started collecting sports cards, which keeps me connected with stats, attributes, and players. I also get a lot of information from my father about the history of sports.
What do you like best about sports?
I enjoy playing, learning how to deal with failure, and learning how to get along and work with my teammates. I enjoy the debates that sports generate between people. Last, but certainly not least, I enjoy the friends I have made through sports.
Do you plan to stay in sports for a long time?
Yes, I hope to make a career out of sports broadcasting or even have a radio talk show. With everything I’ve learned at sports broadcasting camp, it seems like an awesome profession to enter. I now write blogs and articles for themlbnation.com and mlbboards.com, and I write about numerous baseball topics. I hope to one day fulfill my dreams of becoming a sports broadcaster or sports writer. I hope to enter the profession of sportscasting via television, radio, etc. I am willing to work as hard as it takes to pursue my dream. Participating in sports broadcasting camp has been extremely helpful for me in deciding what I would like to do further down the road. Through camp, we learn how to anchor, talk sports, debate, and almost anything along those lines, which has helped me in ways I can’t explain. Writing and talking about sports come easy to me now.
What advice or tips can you give young people thinking of a career in sports?
Do everything you can at a young age because, if you do, you have a lot of time to learn and progress. Be personable, play as many sports as you can, and watch as many sports as you can. Learn as much as you can, any way possible, because the more research you do and the more information you obtain, the more knowledgeable you become with sports. Get your name out there as well. You know, write on websites, make package videos, comment on articles—basically anything to stay involved with sports and the passion for sports talk.
Use what you have. The most used type of camera in all of history is the cell phone camera. It may be all you have on hand when you attend a sporting event. How can you take amazing photographs of great moments with the camera you carry in your pocket?
Compose well: Imagine a tic-tac-toe grid on top of the scene. Set elements of interest not along the lines but at the intersections.
Capture movement: Hold the camera phone with both hands and move the camera at the same speed as the subject. This will make the subject appear clear to the photograph’s viewer and will blur the background.
Anticipate shutter lag: Get used to your camera phone’s timing so when something interesting happens, you’ll have a good feel for the point when you need to press the button.
Name: Abe Asher
Age: 16
Job (when not studying!): Sports writer, Oregon Sports News and EPL Talk, former sports blogger @abesworldsports
Dream Job: Writer
Talk about your blog. How did you get started? How do you get your information? What do you like to blog about?
I started my website in November 2010 through Google Sites, a free, easy, painless way to create a website. I wanted to fuse my love of sports and a growing passion for writing into one place where I could share and archive my thoughts. I get most of my information through firsthand experiences watching games or reading the newspaper or other online resources. There is so much sports knowledge and opinion readily available, there is no shortage of info. I like to write about soccer, specifically the Portland Timbers, and college football, specifically the Oregon Ducks. I also like to explore social and political issues in sports and dive into different stadium experiences in many different sports.
What sports have you participated in and when?
I’ve played baseball, basketball, soccer, and tennis. I played soccer all my life until high school and baseball until around the start of middle school. I currently play varsity high school tennis and JV basketball.
What are you doing now in terms of education/sports participation?
I’m a high schooler in Portland, Oregon, and I play tennis and basketball for my school.
How did you get started in sports?
I got started in sports on my dad’s lap, watching the 2001 World Series. It was one of the best World Series of all time, the New York Yankees and the Arizona Diamondbacks. Play was emotionally charged due to the harrowing attacks of September 11th, and on the field it was a thrilling, seven-game tug-of-war, with walk-off home runs, bloopers, and history at every turn. I was only four at the time, but the stakes and intensity and wonder of that World Series catapulted my life in sports.
What do you like best about sports?
I love the theater of sports. It’s the best kind of reality television. It’s real, it’s hard, it’s joyous. Sports are a kind of alternative universe going on in the midst of our usual universe—there are good guys and bad guys, teams and events, rules and regulations, politicking, scandal, characters left and right. I also love the games themselves—what humans can do in an athletic setting—and I love the feel of sports. There is nothing as exciting as being in a sports arena during a big game. The energy is unmatched. All over sports we see unbridled emotion—sports are well and truly alive.
Do you plan to stay in sports for a long time?
I think sports will always be in my life in some way. Who knows if I will be in the sports industry, but through playing sports, watching sports, and being around sports, I will always have sports as a part of my life.
What are your career goals and dreams?
I want to become a professional writer. I’d love to write columns, and it’d be great to stay in Portland.
What advice or tips can you give young people thinking of a career in sports?
I’d tell people considering a career in sports to remember why they love the games. To remember how to be a fan, to never lose sight of what makes sports fun. Cynicism is poison. No, the sports world isn’t a fairy-tale kingdom—it’s full of cheating, drugs, back-door deals, and mediocrity—but through all of that, sports is a truly magical place to spend time. Don’t ever forget that.
Notes:
1. Ferguson Publishing, Careers in Focus: Sports, 4th ed. (New York: Ferguson Publishing, 2008), 84.
2. “The World’s Highest Paid Athletes,” Forbes, June 2013, http://www.forbes.com/athletes/list/.