Musings

After covering nine hours of gymnastics last week, I was completely exhausted. I had a splitting headache, and my voice was barely audible the next day. On Tuesday I was scheduled to call a basketball game and still wasn’t recovered, but I was able to put mind over matter to get through it. On Wednesday my voice completely broke down, but that didn’t remove the basketball game from my schedule that evening.… Read More

When making your debut calling an unfamiliar sport, often the goal is just to make it through the event unscathed. The thought that you might make a call documenting history is the farthest thing from your mind. However, that’s exactly what happened over the weekend when I covered the Minnesota State Gymnastics Meet, and a remarkable young athlete named Chaney Neu performed the first ever perfect ten on any apparatus in the long history of the state meet.… Read More

Marathon Week: Last week I was scheduled to call six basketball games in five consecutive days. After a snow day canceled the first game, it was cut to five games in four days. It’s not the busiest week I’ve ever had, but it was definitely up there. The biggest challenge was finding a way to be as prepped as possible for each game despite the obvious time crunch.… Read More

I’ve written in the past that I find studying the traits and characteristics of successful sportscasters to be fascinating. The twists and turns of each individual’s path are all completely different! However, talking to top level broadcasters on my podcast for over three plus years, certain patterns of behavior repeatedly show up with the most successful broadcasters.… Read More

This is a re-post from April 2017. With regular season hoops winding down and tournaments on the horizon, it’s a great time to call games. It’s also a great time to make money for your station or team! Here are a few tips for selling games during tournament season!

As broadcasters, many of us love the purity of the game.… Read More

One of the very first lessons most of us are taught in our broadcasting careers is to treat every microphone as if it’s on. Inevitably at some point, almost everyone ignores that advice, assuming that the mic is off or that a producer in the studio has potted the audio down on the board. 99% of the time, this approach works just fine, but eventually someone will slip up, and conversation that wasn’t meant for air will be heard when you don’t want it to.… Read More

Last week was a slow one calling games. I was originally scheduled for a DIII college game Wednesday and a high school game on Friday. The college game went off without a hitch, but on Friday as the snow began to fall, I was informed that the game was canceled due to weather.

With all the free time, I was able to relax, get to the gym a few times, and spend my birthday evening out on the town with my wife.… Read More

When I was moving from Iowa to South Dakota for a radio job, I arranged to move into an apartment with a coworker, who was also starting at the same time. Prior to moving in together, we had a phone conversation getting to know each other, discussing who was bringing what furniture, who had extra dishes, and eventually we talked about who would pay what bills.… Read More

Last week I wrote about refocusing on improving as a play-by-play broadcaster through regular focused practice. Finding ways to prevent tripping over the same stumbling blocks that set me off track before will be critical for success. The two biggest adjustments are:

Working Around A New Lifestyle: When I started the Blueprint process in 2015, I would do many of the activities in the evening.… Read More

I don’t make new year’s resolutions. If something is worth doing, there’s no point in waiting for an arbitrary date. Waiting for a specific moment to do something to make yourself better is wasting the time leading up to that point. The whole idea of new year, new you is generally just an excuse for undisciplined people to feel good about themselves for a few weeks before falling back into their old habits.… Read More