By Jeremy D. Wells
Carter County Times
Lots of kids grow up dreaming of a career in sports. For most of them, those dreams are about being on the field. But for one East Carter senior working to make his sports dream a reality, it’s not about being on the field himself. It’s about calling the plays and helping others understand what’s happening out there.
“I’m a huge fan of sports,” explained Christopher Stephens.
But, he noted, he’s not particularly athletic himself.
“I knew I wasn’t athletically gifted, but I knew that I loved to watch the highlights and hear all the play calls,” he said.
He also knew that theater, his first passion, wasn’t likely “to be the number one thing” he would pursue as he grew older and considered career paths.
Sports, however, was something he could see being central to his life and career. It could also be a way, he explained, to continue using his voice to perform – one of the things he enjoys about theater.
“I love football. I love basketball. I love baseball. So, I was like, ‘I think I want to do sports broadcasting for either radio or T.V.’”
This might be where most high school kids would stop, at least until it was time to choose a relevant field of study. But Stephens isn’t most high school kids.
Not content to just sit around waiting for things to happen, he started taking steps to make his dream a reality.
“I knew I needed to start small,” he said. “Whenever I heard that East Carter Middle School’s football team was in need of an announcer… I texted the head coach Junior Salmons and told him I was interested.”
After they worked out their schedule for the season, Stephens explained, he “became the announcer for the vast majority of their games.” This included the EKC tournament at Kentucky Christian University (KCU), and the EKC All-Star game at Morehead State University, games which opened up more opportunities for Stephens. For instance, after calling the middle school games at KCU, he was given the opportunity to work some of the KCU games.
“After the middle school football season was on its last game, I got a call from Dave (Manning, KCU Athletics Director), and he talks to me and said that he’d been hearing about how I do announcing, and that he was interested in me doing a college football game at KCU – specifically for the Union versus KCU Knights.”
“I was really, really excited,” Stephens continued. “And since it was my first college game, I had to say yes.”
After a successful outing, he said, he was called to come back again, getting to announce a record breaking win for KCU.
But whether it’s a middle school team, or a record breaking college game, he said the common goal is to engage with the crowd.
“You have to portray your excitement for your home team or for your crowd,” he said. “They’ve got to feel it.”
It’s a lesson he learned, he said, from listening to Marty Brennaman announcing game for the Cincinnati Reds, and Ben James, the longtime voice of the East Carter Raiders, who he cited as two of his big influences.
“I always used Ben James as my inspiration,” he said. “His voice was really powerful, and he was really good at riling up the crowd with the Raiders.”
It’s inspiration, he said, that he’ll take with him next year when he begins studying media marketing communications at Northern Kentucky University.
“NKU has been my dream college for the past four years,” he said, in part because they partner with ESPN to broadcast their games, which opens opportunities for internships with the sportscasting giant, though he noted that “Marshall almost had me there for a second.”
“But,” he added, “then Northern Kentucky showed me a little bit more, and I was dead set on going.”
In the meantime, he’s been continuing to grow his experience, working with Mike Nelson and Dee Shufflebarger at WUGO/WGOH Go radio, where he’s started learning the structure of radio broadcasts, such as how to switch between live broadcasts and commercials, and had the opportunity to read the weather on air.
“It’s a whole other process,” he said. “You’ve got to over prep for these kinds of things.”
But preparation, Stephens has shown, is something he’s not afraid to do.
Contact the writer at editor@cartercountytimes.com
This is a great article! I enjoyed reading it.