Musings

I’ve been sitting on a story debating whether to write about it. It was a strange example of a coach making the media the enemy and led to an assistant coach getting chewed out right in front of me. I don’t want to cause any other problems for that coach, so I will not point out which team, or even during which season it happened.… Read More

Sportscasting seasons differ for all of us. If you’re a baseball broadcaster, you’re just finishing up your downtime and getting ready for the grind. Others who cover basketball or hockey are seeing the busiest time of their season come to an end. As a predominantly a football and basketball broadcaster my broadcast season is coming to a close for the year and it’s bittersweet.… Read More

I recently drove to dinner at a place in Sioux Falls about 35 minutes from my apartment. On the way home, I tuned into a local game covered by a high profile broadcaster in South Dakota’s biggest city. I drove for 25 minutes before I was able to figure out who was playing. The broadcaster referred to the home team, who we will call the “Wildcats” for the sake of anonymity, by their nickname only and never said which team had the ball.… Read More

Three games. Three different cities. Two sports. One day to get ready. Ready, set, go!

On Thursday morning, I thought this article would be about making my debut calling indoor football for the Sioux City Bandits. I was fortunate enough to pick the freelance opportunity with the Bandits, but that wasn’t the story of the weekend.… Read More

I had an interesting conversation with John Thayer, the sports/operations director at my station. He knows I’ve been doing a lot of working on improving my sportscasting vocabulary. John was following one of my broadcasts when he noticed I was using the term “the nail ” as a floor locator. As someone who played basketball at the high school and collegiate level, I know that there is a tiny nail pounded into the dead center of the free throw line in almost every basketball court in the country.… Read More

I recently worked out a deal with a jeweler from Denison, Iowa, who was a former advertising client, to save money on our wedding bands. Denison is the town where I got my start in radio out of college. However, it’s nestled in the middle of nowhere, at least an hour and a half from any metro area.… Read More

I received the following email from a young broadcaster asking about how to streamline the basketball preparation process:

I was curious if you had a process you like to go through to prep for your games? I do broadcasting as a side job/hobby and so I’m usually forced to carve out slivers of time here and there to get onto our Iowa stats website and start pulling information for the next game.… Read More

I write frequently about what makes the sportscasting industry difficult and challenges in my career. But it’s not all fire and brimstone. As I’ve written before, sometimes you have to give yourself credit for your success. What I’ve found out over the last couple of weeks is that my Blueprint to Broadcasting Success is working.… Read More

I covered my very first game as a sophomore at Morningside College. They were, and still are, an NAIA team, and were playing NCAA DII University of South Dakota. I had not yet given up on my athletic career as a member of the Morningside JV basketball team. The Morningside team was really good that year and there was a buzz in the air around campus that this might be a great opportunity to beat a D II team.… Read More

I recently read an article by Ray Allen in the Players Tribune that really spoke to one of the things I’ve been trying to learn over the last year. It was a letter he wrote to his younger self and inside it he talks about the secret to success and what makes the best people the best.… Read More