Why I Want To Pursue A Career In Sports Media

The second week of March was a bizarre, painful week. The NBA was postponed on Monday, March Madness was canceled on Tuesday, and my school was shut down on Wednesday. Little did I know how long I would have to wait before being able to watch live sports on TV again. During those four months without sports, I came to truly appreciate the role of sports in my life, from the endless entertainment it offers to the source of cultural knowledge that it has become for me. Even though I haven’t played organized sports aside from cross country and track since my freshman year of high school, sports mean a lot to me because of my ability to contribute to the action on the field as a spectator and analyst. My passion for sports centers around how I prefer to engage with sports from the sidelines, instead of actively participating on the field.

I have been drawn to watching over playing sports for as long as I remember, because I have never been a very good athlete. As a baby, I was diagnosed with a deficit in sensory motor planning, which has caused issues with my coordination and motor skills. I had a tremor in one of my hands and a rather shy personality, so I relegated myself to the bench to watch my kindergarten classmates play kickball because I struggled to participate in playground games. After some occupational therapy I was able to become a normal kid, and I played baseball and basketball throughout grade school, although I never was the best player on my team. Still, I have always preferred watching sports in person or on TV ever since I was a toddler. My parents have had season tickets for the San Francisco Giants for twenty years, so I went to my first baseball game when I was only a few weeks old; my dad says I even learned to do simple addition by watching basketball games.

I have always been fascinated by the many facets of sports aside from the actual athletic performances on the field, from coaching techniques to pregame shows to collecting baseball cards. Unlike many other kids, I never dreamed of becoming a professional athlete like Barry Bonds or Buster Posey, and instead I thought just as highly of the Giants’ TV broadcasters, Mike Krukow and Duane Kuiper. Home runs just don’t feel the same when Kuip isn’t screaming “IT’S OUTTA HERE!!!” In an article for ESPN.com, Steve Fainaru says that “Watching baseball with Kruk and Kuip is like sitting at a neighborhood bar with two best friends who happen to be hilarious ex-players and want nothing more than for you to enjoy the experience as much as they do.” I believe that Kruk and Kuip contribute to Giants games just as much as the players on the field, thanks to their fun and witty analysis. After all, sports, at their core, are simply a form of entertainment, so the way sports are presented can affect the viewing experience greatly. That’s exactly why it is possible to contribute to sports as someone other than a coach or athlete, as I inspire to do as well.

I have never been a very good athlete, so I have found other ways to contribute to sports around me. I have always had a knack for knowing what to do in a given situation across multiple sports. I remember my soccer coach in second grade getting mad at himself for taking me out late in the game, because the team suffered without my situational knowledge on the field, even though I only scored exactly one goal throughout the season. In Little League baseball, I knew the correct decisions to make on the field, although I couldn’t consistently execute these plays. So, I quickly figured out my analytical talents were more optimal within the realm of sports as opposed to my athletic abilities.

In high school, I continued this analytical development as I realized my unique passion for sports and desire to go into sports media. During freshman year, I served as an assistant coach for the track team at my former middle school, and guided the sixth-grade girls 4x100 relay team to second place finish in the league, despite having never run that particular relay race myself and simply learning the handoffs via YouTube videos. I also extensively covered my high school sports teams, by broadcasting for the live streams of football and basketball games, and writing about baseball games and my cross country team for the school newspaper.

Broadcasting football and basketball games became my favorite extracurricular activity because it helped me experience firsthand how people can really influence the viewing experience of sports from off the field, as I talked about earlier with the Giants’ broadcasters. Teachers and classmates often told me how good of a job I had done on the broadcast of that weekend’s football or basketball game, which was feedback I didn’t often get as an athlete. The Monday after a football game last year, our team’s star wide receiver even commended me in class for my analysis of a play, which even he didn’t recognize on the field. Similarly, one of my favorite moments watching my high school football team came in a game against our rival school, and since we weren’t able to live stream the game, I was sitting with my friends in the stands. Right before our team scored a touchdown, I predicted the exact play that they would run–a back-shoulder throw on a corner route to our best wide receiver–to the amazement of my friends. Experiences like that are why I am able to find as much, if not more, joy in watching from the sidelines as opposed to actually playing sports. These experiences are also why I want to further progress my education about sports in order to improve my knowledge and skills, both inside and outside of school, so that I can hopefully continue to amaze and entertain people.

Now let’s go back to these past few months. With the additional free time I had been given thanks to stay-at-home orders, I spent countless hours in my room devoted to learning more about sports, even in their absence, so that I can improve my analytical abilities. I learned about the advanced statistics that are shaping football and baseball, and dedicated more time to reading articles and watching videos from my favorite sports media personalities. I religiously watched “The Last Dance” documentary about Michael Jordan with my family in April and May, and woke up early to catch European soccer games in June and July. Ever since the MLB season and NBA playoffs began at the end of July, I have been watching games basically every day, often on multiple screens. I have also already gotten involved with the sports desk in the Annenberg Media Center, so that I gain more experience in discussing, analyzing, writing, and learning about sports. Most of all, I am excited to be able to contribute my growing knowledge of sports to a progressively larger audience.

Works Cited

Fainaru, Steve. “From The Mag: Krukow and Kuiper, A Giant Friendship.” ESPN, ESPN Internet Ventures, 30 Sept. 2014, www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/11617731/the-giant-friendship-san-francisco-giants-announcers-mike-krukow-duane-kuiper.