PORTSMOUTH, Va. (WAVY) – After my first few weeks, I didn’t expect as much radical growth as I had experienced moving forward. I could not have been more wrong.
When I started at WAVY, I was happy just writing scripts and cutting videos for VOs. Just being on the set was an amazing experience, and I had gone to film a local soccer game on my second day. I should have known that was just a taste – the tip of the iceberg – of what was to come.
My favorite experience since my first post was going to Harbor Park with Nathan Epstein. We were going to cover one of the players getting the call up to Baltimore for a game. However, by the end of the night there was a completely different story to cover.
For the first time in 22 years, longer than I’ve been around, a Tides player hit for the cycle in Harbor Park. Gunnar Henderson, who was just named to the All-Stars Futures roster this year, made history while I was in the park. I couldn’t believe how lucky I was that I was on assignment when such a fantastic sports story broke by pure coincidence.
There were so many other great things about that game: I filmed a home-run which aired that night, we were on the field afterwards for a postgame interview with Henderson and I got to see the press box for the first time. It’s difficult to piece this all together in a way that’s easy to follow. Just know that, as someone who grew up going to Tides games since he was in elementary school, it was an unbelievable time.
Another memorable experience these past few weeks was studio directing the Hampton Roads Show on Friday. It was a busy show with a kitchen segment, a guest from VBCPS and a live band for the first time in years.
And as memorable as it was, it was also stressful. Coordinating microphones, making sure guests were on time, getting the set ready, keeping track of timing (while your headset audio isn’t understandable). While we kept things running, I’m happy to stick with sports coverage. That’s why you try different things in the first place.
There’s a lot more I could mention about these last few weeks. More scripts, other live events, my first time practicing anchoring a show. Like I said earlier, a lot happened in these second two weeks. I know now that there’s even more waiting in the near future.
