Wow! I absolutely can NOT believe it’s already August, this summer has absolutely flown by. I mean don’t get me wrong, I’m more than excited to get back to work at SCSU for my senior year but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t sad the summer of 2017 is soon coming to a close.
I wanted to make a little post and catch everyone up on what I’ve busy with the past few months. Besides seeing old friends, catching up with family on the weekends and serving a couple tables here and there at a restaurant on Lake Minnetonka, I had some AMAZING hands on experiences in the broadcast field.
As some might know, I was busy commuting to St. Cloud this summer covering the St. Cloud Rox Baseball team which is made up of top collegiate baseball players in the country. I worked with an amazing crew that I was able to befriend, goof around with and most importantly, learn from.
My main duties were performing post-game interviews. One interview was immediately after the game concluded that was broadcasted on the stadium microphone and the interviews following were for the team’s social media outlets.
Since I was a kid, I always had the dream to achieve a career in Sports Broadcasting. It started when I was younger reporting to my mom about every play my brothers were apart of on the ice. I loved proclaiming the updates and exaggerating the intensity of games and eventually realized that sometime in my future, I would want to give a report to not only my mom about a game, but thousands and thousands of people.
That being said, I knew I wanted to go to a school that offered the necessary programs and proper classes to get me closer to making this dream a reality. Safe to say, by my senior year of high school, I veered from this vision as I accepted an invitation to play basketball at the University of Hawai’i at Hilo. The experiences I had in Hawai’i were some of the best and I learned a lot about myself as a person and also as a student. Long story short, the jump to the islands was amazing but I had to give myself a reality check. It wasn’t getting me closer to my career goals. After lots of consideration and discussions with my friends, teammates and coaches, I decided to travel back home to Minnesota and transfer to St. Cloud State University where I could get to business and get this ball rolling.
I had always heard of the awards SCSU students in the Mass Communications department received but had never really noticed until I started my first day walking into the tv studios. I knew that this school was the right pick for me. The many clubs and shows to get involved in kept me busy right away and in only my first year I learned the most I’ve ever gotten to learn about sports broadcasting. I am so excited to continue my studies at this school and look forward to what more I will be able to learn in the months to come.
One of my favorite things about St. Cloud State is the hockey production team we have here called “Husky Productions.” HP is a student run sports broadcast that displays the SCSU hockey games to over 30,000 households. It’s about as real as it gets and I love the feeling it brings of a real-world sports broadcast.
I attached a feature I made from last season on the Husky Stats that were standout at the end of the 2015-2016 season. Make sure to check it out!
For now, I look forward to what more I can learn in the remainder of my time at St. Cloud State.
This past summer of 2016, I had the incredible opportunity to be a summer intern at FOX 9-KMSP in Eden Prairie, Minnesota.
I was stationed in the sports department under Jim Rich who is a very well known sports anchor for FOX 9 news. I still remember my first day at FOX, I walked into the studios nervously as I was extremely intimidated of such a professional, busy atmosphere of people I didn’t know and jobs I didn’t understand. Although, after only a couple minutes in the studios, it wouldn’t take long for me to feel right at home.
Every member of the staff didn’t fail to introduce themselves and make sure I knew that I could come to them if I had any questions or needs which made me feel more comfortable having a good deal of support on my first day.
As the days and weeks carried on, I was able to do and experience many different things. Some days, I would be sent out with reporters from the news channel to go and gather stories and shoot packages in different areas of the metro and then other days I would be meeting and interviewing different iconic coaches and players in the sports world. It was amazing that I was able to not only focus solely on sports but also the news world and learn how the both of them operate.
All in all, I learned the operations of news, how to hold myself in front of a camera, conduct interviews, advertise social media accounts and many more things! Looking back, the time absolutely flew by. It makes me sad to think about how much I miss it but I continue to remind myself about the friends I was able to make and connections I was able to establish.
I am beyond thankful for the many things I took away from my internship with FOX 9. The memories, the connections, the camera and news knowledge but my favorite thing was that I got to take away several videos of myself in studio where FOX 9 recorded me doing different sportscasts and sent me with copies that I can take and use for the rest of my life.
Attached is a video of me from this past summer down at Viking’s Training Camp where I was able to record my own stand up and assemble my very own news story with the help of photographer Nate Zinnel, Anchor Hobie Artigue and other members of staff.
In case you didn’t know, I lived in Hawaii for a year. I was a student at the University of Hawai’i at Hilo where I planned on originally playing softball, but long story short, I played basketball instead.
My first months in Hawaii were a huge culture shock. I was blown away with the fact that I was able to wear shorts and go swimming in the middle of November and not to mention the non-existence of hockey. After a while I learned to adjust to the new lifestyle and safe to say, I learned some things about myself. For example, little did I know I would LOVE eating raw tuna, in Hawai’i they are called “Poke Bowls” [pronounced poh-kay]. I also learned something else, I LOVE to surf!
At first, it was always something I enjoyed to watch from afar… local Hawaiians walking down the rocky beaches holding their hand-made wooden surf boards. I was always so amazed with the style of some and how they were so gifted with the talent to cut through waves and never fall off their boards. I never believed I would be the best at surfing, but one day I decided to give it a try.
My Australian friend Tom was a well-known surfer at my school and also gave lessons, so he offered to help me out one day. I made my way down to the beach and finally took my board in the water. At first, Tom told me to swim out as far as I could and turn around in time to ride the wave. To me, this sounded like a piece of cake… Until I tried to do it! It took me all day to gain the balance and style to jump up on the board. Fall after fall, slip after slip… I still continued to get back on the board and try again.
Finally, right before we were about to leave I wanted to give it one last try. I swam out to the center of the tide, turned my board around right in time to catch it, and jumped up right after I caught the wave.
The Chicago Cubs is my favorite baseball team and has been for a very long time. That being said, I have always wanted to catch a game in their very own home field in Chicago, Wrigley Field.
Last year, I finally was able to make that happen.
(Sep. 6, 2015) I trekked down to Chicago to visit my little brother in the Navy. I couldn’t stop fantasizing over going to Wrigley Field on the drive down and although we had plenty of organized family events that were planned, I knew I needed to find some sort of way to make it work.
On the last day we were in town, I planned a very impromptu visit to see the cubbies in person and bought a $8 train ticket to take me into the city. I had never rode a train before and hadn’t known I needed cash. When the train clerk came up to punch a ticket for me I told him where I was planning to go and he gave me the proper directions but then proceeding to ask for cash. My heart stopped, I searched and searched through my over-sized, un-organized purse and finally I was able to scrap up $8 dollars in coins! After that nerve-racking experience, the train arrived at my stop and I proceeded on my journey.
While walking towards the field through blocks and blocks of neighborhoods, I went on my phone and purchased a $45 “standing room only” ticket. All by myself I wandered into the gates of the historic Wrigley Field and it was one of the most incredible experiences of my life! I got to see Jason Hayward hit an out-of-the-park home-run as well as witness Jake Arrieta pitch in person! I was in heaven.
I plan to go back very soon, but until then… I’ll enjoy watching my favorite team play from the comfort of my living room! 🙂
