A major part of why I posted my Blueprint to Broadcasting Success was so it could be helpful to other broadcasters. I also posted it for selfish reasons to hold myself accountable for putting in the extra work to get better. As part of that accountability I’m going to post monthly on how closely I stuck with the plan, the challenges faced, and how/ if I’m hearing improvement in my self critiques. From there I can determine what I need to focus on to continue improving and moving down the path towards becoming a great broadcaster.
June is a bit down in practice time but way up in networking connections. That’s because I took five days off of the plan to go to the NSMA Weekend and ODT 16. The tips and connections made are so valuable that I don’t really consider this to be skipping the program but I did want to make a note as to why the overall time is a bit down.
*The plan called for at least 14 minutes of practice play-by-play each day, minus five days, for a minimum of 350 minutes. I missed three days for various reasons but made up the time on the following day in each instance. This month I called 154.5 minutes of basketball and 197.5 minutes of football. That’s 352 total minutes. That’s a total of almost 8.8 full 40 minute basketball games.
*The plan features eight days in June of picking a term and coming up with a minimum of five different ways to vary that description. I came up short this month with six of the eight called for vocab exercises.
*I was supposed to listen to eight other announcers and pick things I like and dislike. I got six of eight on this as well.
*The program calls for three self-critique sessions. I was three for three.
*The blueprint includes emailing other broadcasters about their careers twice per week for a total of eight times in June. With NSMA and ODT 16 I blew this one out of the water. I sent 46 emails to people talking about their careers and have many more still to send.
Totals For June
154.5 min bball
197.5 min fball
6 vocab sessions
6 critiques of other
3 self critiques
12 critique requests
46 contacts made
Totals Overall Jan-June:
1,644 minutes of practice play by play.(27.4 hours)
47 sessions of coming up with a minimum of five new vocab words.
17 self critiques.
22 critiques of others.
38 listening sessions of other announcers pbp.
119 relationship building contacts
