A Flashback Photo
March 01, 2007
My morning on Wednesday got started with the opening of an email from my old friend Mink. The subject of the email simply read "flash back." It was a copy of a scanned photo of he and I on press row just before we did radio play-by-play for one of our college's mens' basketball games. I vaguely remember his parents taking the shot as they were out for the weekend on a visit. This photo had to be at least 9-10 years old. We looked so young, so thin. I remember evenings like that one fondly. Even though our college is in a mid-major basketball conference (not quite the Big East or ACC, but maybe on a level of the A-10), the atmosphere was exciting and we treated our gigs to call the action as if we were pro's on a network.
Mink and I both were communications majors, and for our entire 4 years at our college we co-hosted a sports talk show on the student-run campus radio station, and called men's basketball action for a few games a season. The highlight of my time doing play-by-play was in the mid-90's when our team was making a run at the NCAA tournament only to fall short and get into the NIT. In fact, this season we actually have a great shot at making it to the NCAA tournament for the first time in over 20 years; we'll find out if they do it this weekend when they play in their conference tournament. But I digress...
The picture brought a smile to my face, then I felt a little bit of sadness. I miss those days. There was so much confidence and hope that I'd make it as a sportscaster on those nights at the fieldhouse. I'd study rosters and stats prior to gameday, then get to press row at courtside to read the sports information department's game notes. We'd be dressed in shirts and ties. We'd rehearse our pregame discussion, agree on the players to key on during the game, and finally it was time to just let it fly. I still have the tapes of some games I did, my best work during my senior year. Alas, almost a decade since graduating college, I'm nowhere near that guy I saw in the picture or will hear on tapes if I play them. I'm so far away from the sports media field, I may as well deny I ever had a goal to be a part of it.
It's a tough business, and I knew that going into college. I ignored the warnings from my parents that I should consider something else. No way, I said, I have the talent to make it. Reality was, I didn't have any connections in the business, and reality hit when I spent my last month or so trying to find work before I graduated. When commencement finally arrived, I was jobless and had no idea what I'd be doing. In the end, I moved to Jersey, did some part-time production work for a sports news gathering company, before finally becoming a suit who worked in NYC on the business side of TV. That road led me to come back home in 2001, and out of the industry all together.
I'm now working in my third industry since graduating college, and it has nothing to do with sports, radio, or television. It 's pretty boring actually. There aren't many days during the week when I'm excited about what the day holds. There is of course the one constant, and that is how much I read up on what's going on in the sports world, and from time to time I love to write about it on my blog...much to the chagrin of some of you. My friends who listen to the schmucks on local sports radio always insist that I would a better host than these clowns, and that opinion has been echoed more than once by the fathers of some of those friends. It's nice to hear, but at this point in my life, pursuing such a dream would not make sense: the paycut would be extreme, I'd likely move a bunch of times, and my voice isn't exactly silky-smooth as compared to the real money-makers.
I'm glad Mink sent me the picture because it captures a moment in my life when I knew what I wanted to do with it. When I look at it, I know what I was thinking. Now, when Batgirl asks me what I plan on doing with my life if I end up deciding this job isn't for me, I give an answer I never believed I would say when I was 20,21-years-old: I don't know.
That is not an answer an adult over 30 say to a potential spouse. I sure do hope I can change it.
posted by That 30's Guy @ 12:01 AM,
