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WORDS. Rachel Marcus PHOTOS. John Dowling
Sportscaster U
Te "Game Plan" starts with travel and a check-in at the hotel. Tose are the easy parts of the whole sched- ule and process. But once everyone settles in, the crash course can really begin. Tat's when the rest of the "plan" is put into motion.
Every summer since 2008, Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications has hosted a different kind of student at Sports- caster U – NBA players. The course is a career- development program in conjunction with the National Basketball Players Association.
So this is what some NBA players are doing over the summer. When there's not much going on and a lockout to top it off, they find solace in preparing for life after basketball. Every day brings a dif- ferent adventure for the players. One day they'll anchor. Another day they'll do stand-ups, another they'll work from the basketball court. From radio to television, they cover it all.
"It was never the same," says Earl Boykins, a 12- year NBA veteran who participated in June. "We never did the same thing twice. Basically it was like college. You're a student."
The program's growth over the years resulted in both a June and July session this past summer. Participants included Vince Carter in June and Jason Terry in July.
The course is taught by adjunct Syracuse professors Dave Ryan and Matt Park. For $5,700, NBA players can participate. Most in the program are still active, but for program alums who have since retired, such as Malik Rose and Eric Snow, they've found their niche in the broadcast world.
"The success rate of the guys so far as time has gone on has been good," says Park. "I think as it goes on and word gets around the league that it's a pretty cool program and it's worth the players' money, we get more players and to a degree maybe higher profile players that are interested in it."
BREVIN KNIGHT KNEW IT. The minute he walked out, he just knew. Broadcasting was for him.
"I let Dave and Matt know," says Knight, "that they would be hear- ing me or seeing me some way for something broadcast-wise."
Knight is a success story. He participated in Sportscaster U in 2009, right after his NBA career had ended. And just last season he was already doing commentary for the Grizzlies.
He uses everything that he learned in the program. First lesson, he says, is preparation time. Second? Don't be afraid to ask ques- tions. You have to get a feel for everything, he says, because it's a brand-new field – find your niche and roll from there.
Knight seems to have taken the advice to heart. Just one year after taking part in the course he had a broadcasting job. He had done some NBA TV in the past, but was still a relative newcomer in the field.
"To be able to do a job that a lot of people spend a lifetime trying to get in just two years being removed is just a blessing," says Knight.
Knight agrees with Boykins in that the course was like school. Except he says it was a step up from school because it was so specified. And intense. An added day or two would have been nice, he says, but the course still covered nearly every aspect of the broadcast world. The "Game Plan," was, in other words, a non-stop, break-only-for-food kind of course.
"I knew that I better get my rest at night," says Knight, "because we were gonna be in a crash course, going at 100 mph when we were there and that's exactly what it was.
"We get kind of accustomed to just playing basketball and we kind of know what everybody does. And so you may not study as much. Being on this side of it, you gotta know your ins and outs and know your stuff 'cause you gotta talk on the fly and you don't want to be stuttering."
And for the most part, the guys put in the work and effort needed for such a short, yet packed course.
"Any notion that, oh these guys are in the NBA and they're lazy and they won't work, that's ridiculous," says Park. "If you get to the level that they have as a player, the amount of time that you spend in the gym, they've been coached and they've worked hard so they're
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