An experience of a lifetime

I knew it from the moment I walked in the door. I had been skeptical of taking a strictly Sports-TV internship at widely renowned KDKA-TV, but it proved to be one of the most valuable experiences of my life. In a way, it was a blessing in disguise. I was seriously considering straying from the business once I graduated, moving into the direction of marketing, athletic directing, or graduate school. Once I got to work at the station I knew my mind would quickly change.
Meeting my supervisors along with the sportscasters was both an overwhelming and exciting experience all at the same time. They laid down the guidelines and what my assignments would be all while reiterating that this would be exactly like a job in the broadcasting field. While intimidated, I knew this would be a defining moment in my college career and in the decision of which career path I chose. I thought for a few days about the experience that was about to unfold. I knew my schedule would be out of the norm and that I would be doing several different types of work. I felt that I was ready to undertake the challenge of a real broadcasting internship.
During my time at KDKA, I felt myself grow into the broadcasting world. From the shaky first interview to my somewhat polished last interview and all the video logging in between, I discovered that I really enjoyed all the facets of this job. Unlike my regular summer job and various classes at school, I looked forward to what KDKA had in store for me that day. The experience and advice I received from the producers and anchors was continual and motivated me to present my best work. Photographers constantly made sure my stand ups were excellent pieces of work. These people took the skills I learned at Westminster and built upon them with their advice and assignments. I shouldered a large amount of responsibility, such as conducting interviews, selecting adequate sound bites for stories, logging video, placing calls to schedule interviews and shoots, and the list goes on.
This experience showed me what a job in sports broadcasting really entails. I worked the same long and unusual hours at the producers and anchors to see what their days consist of. I learned the news system the station uses to become better acclimated to different AP systems. I wrote and rewrote scripts to brush up on my writing skills. I did it all and, most of all; I loved every single minute of it. It was something I never truly complained about, which is how I knew it was my true calling. It was the hardest I have worked and the most fulfilling when I finished a given task. Most of all, it was a test in what growing up and post graduation life will hold for me. I know now how difficult it is to break into the business—it took an experience like KDKA to show me that.
Support was also easy to come by. The producers and anchors I worked with directly urged me to look at other careers involving sports, such as marketing and athletic directing. They claimed I would still need my broadcast expertise to be successful in those careers; however, they pushed me to produce and write, with the hope of one day becoming an on air sports talent. That push was all I needed and, honestly, I don’t even know if I needed it in the first place. I knew by about the second week of long days and lots of sports knowledge being thrown around that this is the career for me. I think I knew it all along, but it took the positive and amazing internship I experienced at KDKA to reaffirm that sports broadcasting is the career for me.

A reflection on an amazing opportunity

As the days draw closer to my starting day at KDKA, I keep trying to comprehend what an opportunity I have been given. I’ve been very blessed to have the talent to compete with so many talented individuals for this position. I’ve been taking time to realize that and truly express how thankful I am. Working at KDKA was something I aspired to since I was a little kid. Now, it’s becoming my biggest reality! I’ve really been thinking about this opportunity lately. According to my supervisor, this will run like an actual job. I will be on assignment at Pittsburgh Penguins and Steeler mini-camp practices, along with logging tape and actually writing some of the scripts for the sports anchors. I was shocked to hear that I would be playing such an integral role in the sports department. There is only one other intern, so we will be splitting duties and occasionally working together on certain things. This leaves the job on my shoulders during my shift. I need to take the time on my first day, Wednesday, to become acclimated with how the job is done there. From that point on, I will work hard to ensure that all work gets done, since I will be the only intern on the job during my shifts. From speaking with my supervisor, I gather that I will be playing an active role in the sports department. From what he said there never seems to be a dull moment. As far as my schedule is concerned, I have absolutely no complains. For the next two weeks I will work from 11 a.m. until 7 p.m. During those hours my duties will range from attending Penguins practices at the Mellon Arena and Steelers practices at their facilities on the South Side to taking notes at the practices for potential stories to assisting the photographer and/or reporter. Once June rolls around, I will be taking on more of a night shift, specifically 5 p.m.-12 a.m., in which I will work with sports during the 5, 6, and 11 p.m. newscasts. Many people would groan about these job hours, but I am really embracing them. I think it’s the best time to be at the station. It’s not nearly as busy during these hours as it would be during the day, so I have a much better opportunity to learn from the professionals around me. The other good thing about KDKA is they said I would be able to assist the Sports Production Department, who produce such shows as “The Hines Ward Show” and other special sports programming at the station. Working with this area would give me an extremely broad base in sports, so I am really looking forward to that opportunity. As I continue to write this I can feel myself getting really excited to get on the job. Working at the station and working with professionals, such as Bob Pompeani, will be an amazing experience. Most of all, I’m really looking forward to enhancing my sports knowledge. In order to get a job in any kind of sports marketing or directing you need to know what you’re talking about. I have a really good feeling that this internship will do a phenomenal job of increasing my sports knowledge. I also think it’s a blessing and an excellent opportunity to work for a television station that I grew up watching and work under Mr. Pompeani, who I’ve admired as a sports caster for many years. Finally, I want this internship to test me. I am really looking for a challenge. I want to experience hardships and I don’t want to just breeze through this. You can’t just cruise through a job or a career. You really have to experience the good and the bad. That’s really what I intend on doing. I’m really motivated to give my absolute all at this internship and I can’t even begin to express my excitement. This is really going to be the opportunity of a lifetime and I can’t wait to start. T-minus 48 hours and counting!

Some goals I have in mind...

So, I’ve realized I haven’t a clue where junior year went. One minute I was unpacking all my stuff and buying books for my first semester courses and now I’m repacking and preparing for my finals and the upcoming summer. I know time moves at the same pace, but I really believe each year here at Westminster goes faster than the previous. With the semester coming to an abrupt end, I’ve been trying to organize some goals for the summer and when I return for my first semester of senior year. Mainly, I want everything with my internship to run smoothly. I’m scheduled to call my supervisor this week and establish my schedule and discuss my duties at the internship. I want to make the best of this internship and firmly believe I will. An obvious goal for this summer is to keep up with the blog on my experiences at the internship. Another goal for this summer is to devise a plan on how to efficiently complete my Capstone project in the fall. I’m thinking much of what I learn at my internship can be applied to how I complete this project. I also need to map out the design for my promotional posters for the upcoming football season. Basically, I’m going to be insanely busy this summer between my internship, my job, and all these plans. I don’t really mind though, because I like staying busy and interning in downtown Pittsburgh is really a dream come true for me.
As far as the fall semester is concerned, I plan on making sure I really adhere to my calendar I created for Capstone. I really want to be on top of managing the highlights for Coach’s Corner, our weekly sports feature show, and Titan Town Sports. Also, week by week I want to implement the highlights that I edit into my compilation video for my project. It’s going to be a great deal of work for me, but I really believe I can do it and make it look amazing. I’m confident that I will really enjoy this project and with the goals I have set, I’m confident that this can be a fantastic project to present come December.

A presidential address close to home

Last weekend I had an opportunity that not very many people get. I was able to not only attend a rally for Hillary Clinton, but I had the opportunity to meet former president Bill Clinton as a audience member standing in the front row. Aside from being an extremely nice and personable guy, he is also a prolific speaker. Working the crowd before and after his speech, encouraging citizens to cast their vote for Hillary in the Democratic primary, he spoke with many people throughout the entire crowd like they were his own friends. Not surprisingly, President Clinton also knows how to interact with media. Around four television stations and three newspapers from Pittsburgh and Erie were present at Allegheny College last Saturday for the former president’s speech on behalf of his wife’s run for the presidency. If you worked for any of those media outlets, you would be hard pressed to not find a good sound bite to air on the news that night or publish in your paper the next day. Clinton’s speech was well crafted and he barely looked down throughout the entire hour long address. His animated hand gestures, pertinent subject matter, and occasional jokes to keep the crowd going for a speech that never felt like the hour that it lasted. Clinton’s uses his experience in the public eye to his advantage. As he spoke, he looked around at the crowd, making eye contact with various members of the audience, perhaps making them think he was speaking directly to them. During some of the speech, he directed his vision and motions towards the cameras set up on a platform behind where I was standing, as to directly address the media for that perfect video clip. It was interesting to observe Clinton’s mannerisms and his media savvy ness. It was also strange to see the media so reserved, since they were confined by Secret Service personnel to the single platform 20 feet from the stage. Obviously, there was an abundance of Hillary supporters in the crowd, but there were also some Obama supporters that created some controversy by waving signs against Hillary’s campaign and sporting Obama apparel. For the media present, there were a multitude of shots that could have been used. The area where President Clinton spoke was outside and on the smaller side, making the 2,000 person crowd look near massive. The speech was held on the most central, and probably the most picturesque, part of the campus. The speech and overall atmosphere at the speech was an amazing experience, not to mention meeting the former President. Even after being out of office for 8 years now, President Clinton still knows how to work a crowd and work the media.

Entering the world of the E-portfolio

This week I, along with the rest of the Capstone class, had the opportunity to visit the career center to work on our portfolio building skills.  This made me a bit anxious, since the only experience I have with portfolio building is creating my resume and some air check tapes.  Much to my surprise, the informational meeting with Career Center Director, Jackie Meade, and Assistant Director, Kati Edmiston, worked much to my benefit.  Jackie explained the importance of building a professional portfolio and what to include in it.  She talked at length with the class about what the difficult aspects of broadcasting are for each of us.  Many of us commented on the deadlines and how that could possibly the most difficult part of being in broadcasting.  Others mentioned working odd hours and being on call, while some others mentioned coming up with fresh story ideas.  Jackie explained that in there will always be difficulties, no matter what career we choose to pursue, but if we work on those difficulties now we will better handle them when we enter the professional world.

After speaking with Jackie, Kati Edmiston took us into the workroom of the Career Center to show us, first hand, what an E-portfolio looks like.  She featured many examples, especially ones regarding broadcasting.  Going through the set up process for an E-portfolio was particularly easy.  Kati explained we could set our up on PowerPoint and format it anyway we wanted.  The examples she provided were filled with all the information a potential employer could want, as well as colorful and artist design to easily catch someone’s eye.  She showed us how to link our resume, cover letters, demo tapes, and other examples of our work within the E-portfolio.  After showing us how to set up the E-portfolio, I felt much better about creating it.  I’m not entirely technologically savvy, so when I heard about this E-portfolio business, need less to say, I was skeptical about doing it.  Kati’s instructions and tips really helped me and made me look at the E-portfolio in a whole new way; she even provided a help sheet with the full instructions and some of her own tips to the class.  I believe her presentation was helpful for the entire class, especially with us getting ready to begin our internships for the summer and having time to start our E-portfolios before our final semester of Capstone starts up this coming fall.  Overall, the trip to the Career Center is exactly what I needed to cure my fears of making an E-portfolio.  I learned many valuable tips from both Kati and Jackie and will be putting them to use in the very near future as I continue developing my Capstone project and, consequently, when I matriculate into the professional world. 

My Capstone proposal: A touchdown in the making?

I had an interesting, yet extremely busy week. Scheduling my classes brought me to the realization, once again, that my time is quickly dwindling here at WC. Trying to accomplish all my work with my upper level Spanish course, combined Psychology and History cluster course, Digital Photography, all on top of Capstone, is extremely difficult. The good news is I’m making progress with all my other classes, in order to focus more on Capstone. I actually had a breakthrough this week with my project. First, I have to say, I was a little shaky on what I actually wanted to do for my project, but after thinking it over and some guidance from a few minds in the Broadcast Department, I came to reach a pretty solid decision. I narrowed my project down to working with the football team, since I must present my project before next semester is over. I was informed that the assistant coaches of the Titan football team produce a compilation video of highlights from the entire season to present to the players at their banquet in January. I found this especially interesting, so I thought I would contact Coach Jeff Hand, the head coach. It didn’t take me long to find him, since he was helping out at registration. I spoke with him about the possibility of undertaking the production of the highlight tape, while the assistant coaches would tell me which plays and other highlights they would want to be shown on it. He agreed and thought it would be a fantastic idea. He was really excited that someone wanted to base their project around the football team. I also mentioned my other idea to him, regarding promoting every Titan football game as well as Westminster Cable Network and Titan Radio where the games would be broadcasted. He told me that promoting the football team could potentially attract many more students and community residents to the games, as well as boost WCN viewers and Titan Radio’s listeners. I plan on staying in close contact with Coach Hand for the remainder of the semester, especially over the next two weeks leading up to my project proposal for the department. Coach seemed like he had a ton of great suggestions for my project. I really look forward to working with him in the near future. I’m thinking now that I’m on track with my Capstone, I can actually begin to plan it out. I will keep in contact with Coach Hand and begin my poster design for promoting the team, WCN, and Titan Radio over the summer. Being that I only live an hour from campus, I could drive up one day to go over the design with Coach Hand and his assistants and anyone in the Broadcast Department if they happen to be on campus. I’m planning on editing highlights for Coach’s Corner this fall and using those highlights in the video for my project. I will be able to put the film together, once the season is over in early November. Until then, this summer is going to give me a prime opportunity to adequately plan my project and how things will go next semester. Keeping in contact with Coach Hand and Mr. Weaver, my Capstone professor, will keep my planning moving right along. I have to move fast, though. Time is already flying, with the semester just about over, I’m almost finished here. This is the final hurdle I’m going to have to jump and it seems to me, I’m already off to a dashing start.

References: What can they do for you?

I breathed a sigh of relief this week. After first thinking that I would have to complete a literary review for my Capstone project by the end of this semester, Mr. Weaver informed us that we should stick to sources in the form of our references that we have been establishing over the course of the semester. This was possibly the best news I’ve received all week. I’ve been steadily working to develop more references for this very assignment. When the semester first started, I didn’t think I had any connections or references that would benefit me, but as time moved along and I went through the internship interviewing process, I came to understand that there were many people I already knew that would make great references. I also came to realize that these people don’t necessarily need to be involved in sports or marketing, they can be just about anyone who knows the broadcasting business or has given me advice. Some of these people I have met by accident. Others have been formally introduced to me. And a few others I still have yet to contact to see what advice and counseling they can offer.
A few of my references are pretty obvious, simply because I have been around them much more than my others.
Lead sports newscaster and also Sports Director at WYTV in Youngstown, Bob Hannon, offered his knowledge to a number of broadcast majors the ways of announcing sports last semester in his Sports Broadcasting class. It was quite an experience and an honor to have someone so well respected in the profession teaching us the ins and outs of sports casting. Mr. Hannon was a great person to go to with advice on careers and was always willing to offer advice to how to make our broadcast projects better.
Bob Pompeani, lead sports caster and Sports Director at KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh, is someone I have enjoyed watching on KDKA for many years now. I have also been fortunate enough to come to know him through various community events. He has always been someone who always has the time to speak with me about my career path and goals. He is always one to offer great advice and was the first person to suggest that I should apply to the internship at KDKA. He has been a great help and, I believe, will become one of my greatest references as I complete my Sports Internship at the station.
Current athletic director and volleyball coach at my alma mater, Michael McDonald (aka Coach Mac to students, friends, and parents), proved to be an unlikely resource in my quest to locate references. At first, I just thought that I could only use his expertise on being a long time athletic director, but once I thought about it, I realized Coach Mac has done so much more than that. He currently sits on both the district and state committees for boys and girls volleyball, in addition to being a long-standing athletic director. He deals extensively with the Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League (WPIAL) through being both a volleyball committee member and also athletic director. He has always been someone willing to help me and could provide great advice and insight on working with school districts and/or leagues, like the WPIAL.
These are just a few of my potential references. All three of these resources can provide me with a wealth of information, primarily in sports, I will need upon entering the job race. I have many other references that I am seeking, but I believe this is a great start. I plan on keeping open communication with these, and many of my other resources, in hopes that they can provide constructive criticism, guidance, and positive reinforcement as I work my way into the wide world of sports marketing.