Waynesburg University Sports Annoucing And Sports Journalism Camp Recap

When I was about eight years old I would play sports video games on my PlayStation like Madden, NHL, NBA Live and MLB the Show. When I would play those games, I would do all the announcing while I played. My mom noticed how enthusiastically I was doing both the play-by-plays and the commentary. I continued practicing announcing all the time. So two years later when my mom saw an ad in a magazine for the Waynesburg Sports Announcing and Sports Journalism Camp, she suggested that when I got into high school I should attend the camp to see if I wanted to make sports announcing my career.

After waiting several years, I finally signed up for the Waynesburg University camp during my junior year of high school. The camp was held in June at their beautiful campus in Greene County. When I first arrived at camp on Monday, I noticed everything was very organized. To check in, a table was set up outside of the dorms. Camp Manager Dave Floyd and the long time Pittsburgh Pirates play-by-play announcer Lanny Frattare were there to greet everyone. When I walked into my dormitory, I realized that I not only was going to learn about how to become a sports announcer and sports journalist but how to live life at a college campus. I had a nice roommate and got to know him real well as we had a lot of things in common. Some things we disagreed on when it came to sports opinions, but I really liked him and I feel as though I made a good friend.

The camp was divided into many sessions where you would learn something different in each one. In the first session Lanny had us stand up and introduce ourselves. I paid close attention to what everybody had to say about themselves so I would know the people I would be with for the rest of that week. When we would eat meals with each other at the cafeteria in Benedum Hall, we got to know a lot about each other. When my parents were driving me to the camp, my mom said that the other campers would probably be sports fanatics like me. She was right. All the other twenty-one campers were sports fanatics and that’s how we all became close to each other.

It was very cool to see on Tuesday morning of that week how famous sports announcers and writers like Mark Kaboly (Pittsburgh Steelers Writer for The Athletic), Bill Hillgrove (Radio Announcer for the Pittsburgh Steelers and Pittsburgh Panthers), John Steigerwald (Radio Talk Show Host) and Paul Steigerwald (Former Pittsburgh Penguins play-by-play announcer) came to our session room and explained their journeys of how they got to be announcers and writers. What I learned from those guest speakers is that it is not easy to become an announcer or writer and that the only way to succeed is to keep working and never give up. There were times in all four of their lives when they thought they should stop trying to become an announcer or a writer, but they kept working hard and knew that this is what they wanted to do. Eventually, they got their big breaks and were able to live their dream jobs. After the four guest speakers were done talking, all twenty-two of us campers formed little groups and talked to each of the guest speakers. We were talking to them for such a long time and enjoyed the conversations we were having with the guest speakers so much, that when Waynesburg University professor Richard Krause told us we had to go eat lunch we were actually disappointed that it was time to go.

During the sessions we learned how to be professional and how to become effective when it comes to announcing games over the air. We also learned the art of preparation of announcing games, techniques of interviewing, how to report sports on TV and on the radio, how to read off a teleprompter and how to announce specifically baseball, football and basketball games at all levels if it would be high school, college or the professional. If you wanted to, you had the opportunity to be on the radio live for half an hour and learn how to host your own radio show. On Wednesday afternoon, Lanny wanted us to get a taste of the sports media industry so we did practical exercises as we interviewed Tyler Godwin, one of the Waynesburg University baseball players in the TV studio. We read an ad in the radio production room, we recorded a radio sports report in the radio office, we read a sports report off a teleprompter and we wrote a sports story with information we had from a sports press conference. We also interviewed Lanny pretending that we were on the radio and we talked about sports on the radio with another one of our fellow campers for twenty minutes. If you come to this camp, you will have a taste of everything professional sports media people do and you’ll probably see some strengths and weaknesses in everything you do. What I liked about the practical exercises was that the instructors would give us a lot of feedback and tell us how to become better at each station we were doing.

When my partner and I announced two innings of the Washington Wild Things game on Thursday, we learned that when it comes to announcing you have to be prepared and know a lot. My partner and I felt like we were prepared but then at the end we realized we could have been even more prepared. I actually was not nervous when I started announcing the game because the counselors did a good job telling us to be ourselves and they did a good job preparing us to not be stressed out. They told us that when they were attending this camp in the past and they were announcing the Wild Things game they did awful, but that after starting at Waynesburg University they are much more comfortable at announcing.

There were a lot of fun games we played at the camp as well like Jeopardy, wiffle ball, basketball, and charades. We also participated in a bean bag toss tournament.

On Wednesday and Thursday nights all of us campers and counselors gathered around in the TV room in the halls and we bonded together. We told stories to each other that were so personal and deep that it brought all of us closer together. I have to give credit to the counselors at this camp including Jack Hillgrove, Alex Lyons, Rachel Mangan, Mitch Montani and Brandon Rossi for making us feel comfortable and making our whole camp feel like a big family. We all became so that on Thursday right before the Wild Things game we created a group chat with some of us campers and counselors so we could keep in touch after we left and if anyone of us had an opinion to say about sports or a picture they wanted to show, we could all see it.

I would like to thank David Floyd, Lanny Frattare, Bill Hillgrove, Dave Kaboly, Paul Steigerwald, John Steigerwald, Richard Krause, Tyler Godwin and Melinda Roeder and everybody else for making this camp so much fun and teaching me so much. I would not hesitate to come back to this camp again next year if Waynesburg University is the college of my choice as I will have to choose soon as I will entering my senior year of high school this year so, if you are thinking about having a job as a sports announcer or sports journalist, this camp will help you decide if you are up to the challenge to make it your career.