Have you always dreamed of being a sportscaster? This is a day in the life of your dream job
Almost every day I am asked some form of the following questions:
“What’s it like to be a sportscaster and reporter?” Fun but difficult.
“How did you get into this business?” Long story.
“Have you always wanted to do this?” Yes. I’m more.
But more and more people who want to enter the world of sports media think that we spend our days cheering at games, drinking champagne with owners, and chest-pounding athletes. Not quite.
Take Easter Sunday 2013, for example. Photographer Bill Ellis and I left San Antonio at 10:30 am, where the Rangers had just wrapped up their spring training program with a two-game series against the Padres. Our final destination? Houston for the first game of the season between the Rangers and the Astros on Sunday night.
Here’s a typical “day in the life” that includes everything from stale hot dogs to a drunken Astros fan rushing our live shot:
7:30 am: Wake up.
8 am: Head to the hotel lobby to watch FaceTime with my daughter and husband.
8:15 am: Train for 45 minutes. I’m always fighting that extra 10 pounds that a camera adds.
9 am: Breakfast and blogs about things to do in Houston.
10 am: I go back to the room to pack.
10:30 am: Leave for Houston
1:30 in the afternoon: Arrival at Hilton Americas. Start dressing right away in long hair and TV host makeup.
2:45 pm: Exit towards Minute Maid Park. It’s about 8/10 of a mile from the hotel so we walked.
3:00 p.m. M.: Get to the park, get badges, go through security, and get lost in the bowels of the facility trying to find the Rangers’ clubhouse. Talk to the station producer about our plan for the night.
3:30 pm: Rangers clubhouse opens. We interviewed David Murphy, Lance Berkman, Mitch Moreland, and Ian Kinsler. Adrian Beltre and AJ Pierzynski turn us down for interviews.
4:30 pm: Ron Washington interview in the middle of a gang of reporters on the Rangers’ bench. Once we were done with Wash, we started shooting video and gathering fan interviews for our Opening Day story that will air on the Score on CBS11 later that night.
5:15 pm: Fight your way up the stairs to the press box to see if there is a seat so we can watch the game and room for Bill to set up the equipment to start editing our story. No space, as they are at full capacity. Reporters are seated in the dining room and at free tables in the hall. Bill and I went downstairs to find a space to work.
5:30 pm: Set up the tent in the Astros press conference room on the completely opposite side of the park from the Rangers clubhouse, about a four-minute walk away. I start recording sound and video to write my story.
6 pm: I finished writing the story. Time to listen to the audio. There is no ideal soundproof area for recording audio, so we used the backdrop of the Astros cloth press conference to muffle the sound. A photographer from a Houston station walks out of the room in the middle of our follow-up session, so I start over. Repeatedly. It takes me three or four tries to record the audio. It’s very cold in the press room now. Bill and I are shaking. There is no cell service in this room. We have to leave the room and walk to the lobby to receive text messages or phone calls. Fortunately, the building’s Wi-Fi signal works in this room.
6:20 pm: We are both hungry. I trudge back to the press room to get something to eat. Bill is hungry, but he wants to edit this story and do it. He asks me to get him a pretzel.
6:30 pm: Buy media dinner for $ 10. I broke my fork trying to cut through the offered meat. I take three bites of everything: frozen iceberg lettuce, tough meat, and fatty potatoes. I taste the popcorn. It’s stale. The frozen yogurt is not bad at all. I’m going to get Bill’s pretzel. Every food stand is full. By the time I’ve waited my 22 minutes and come to the counter for their pretzel, this particular booth has run out of them. I’m trying to text Bill to see if he wants anything else. You are not receiving the text message due to poor cell phone signal. I march back to the press box to grab him one of the three hot dogs left in the toaster. Looks like he’s been sitting there for four hours.
7:45 pm: Finally return to our base in the bowels of Minute Maid Park. Bill takes his cold hot dog. I finally have the opportunity to watch the game on a television in the press conference room. I don’t actually see a single pitch in person. The Astros radio broadcast is broadcast on television. I use my MLB at Bat app to listen to Eric Nadel and Matt Hicks. In a rush to get out of my hotel room, I leave my iPad charger in the room. I have to conserve battery life to use my iPad later in the evening, so I can’t listen to them continuously.
9:55p.m: At the beginning of the ninth inning. We walked to the Rangers clubhouse to prepare for postgame interviews.
10:05 pm: It seems to take longer than usual to get into the dressing room after the Rangers’ 8-2 loss. We went into the Wash office. Rangers public relations agent John Blake says TV reporters will ask questions first and then the print media, but every media person packs up the small Wash office. I ask two questions and I go.
10:30 pm: Interview with Matt Harrison, Derek Lowe and AJ Pierzynski. Get one-on-one interviews with Nelson Cruz, Elvis Andrus, and David Murphy. Bill points out that it’s getting late and we need to go to our live filming location.
10:50 pm: Get to the location of the live shot outside the Minute Maid park. We need feedback from the interviews we gather. We are working with our “sister station” in Houston, KTRK. Their technology is not compatible with ours, so we have to feed our material a second time using our “backup” equipment that we brought in from Dallas. The video quality is not that good.
23:00 h: Touch up hair and makeup for a live shot. Start gathering my thoughts to determine how I’m going to present the post-game sound and story that we shot earlier in the day. A nice young lady from Dallas starts asking me how to get into the sports broadcasting business. I talk to her for about 10 minutes. I’ve only spent a full five minutes preparing what I’m going to say before going on television.
11:15 pm: On the spot for our live shot. An over-served fan yells at us “Get back to Arlington!” His wife drags him away. Bill is still feeding material to our station. A KTRK photographer is shooting my live shot. There is a monster truck crossing the street up and down behind us while sitting on its horn. Once I start presenting my post-game interviews, I notice the KTRK photographer shaking his head. I feel a blast of air on my right shoulder. Out of the corner of my left eye I see Bill running towards me. Push a drunk Astros fan out of the way. Bill says this guy was charging towards us. I turn around to briefly see what’s going on. I think I stumble upon my introduction.
11:19 pm: Our live shooting is over. Bill can’t believe that guy came out of nowhere. My heart is still pounding because it scared me so much. We dismounted our gear and walked back to Hilton.
11:45 pm: Arrival at the hotel. We are hungry. Again. There’s a lonely Easter basket left over from the hotel’s egg hunt with some miniature Reese’s peanut butter cup treats. I grab six of those and go to the bedroom for my “second dinner.” Bill tells me later that he ordered room service. It finally arrives at 12:45 am. $ 42.50 for a chicken sandwich and a carrot cake.
Monday in the morning:
8 am: Go to Dallas and write this message in the car on the way home.
Noon: Get home. My daughter runs away when I try to hug her. I think despite FaceTime, he forgot about me.
While we are not always on the road, we do travel quite a bit. In fact, our days are a little tighter when we are at home. Long days with unexpected surprises and some obstacles are the norm. Is this an easy job? No. Is it fun? Definitely. We wouldn’t do it any other way … except for the no-hug part of Jordan.