Spotting Boards: Yes or No?
Failure to Prepare is preparing to Fail
Preparation is potentially the biggest key to success in sportscasting. For many of us working in the field, simply gaining access to appropriate information is a struggle of its own. As an active member of several Play by Play/Color Commentator/Sideline Reporter social networks I’m well familiar with the usual grievance—it’s gameday and someone still hasn’t found a visiting team roster nor updated statistics. (My peers who work in high school sports don’t get near enough credit for the behind-the-scenes effort that goes into simply knowing which athlete is wearing which number on that particular day, let alone any kind of statistics or historic context.)
The higher one climbs in sportscasting the more accessible information becomes and for that reason I was fortunate that my first Play by Play gig was mid-major Division I basketball. However, as the saying goes, there is such thing as too much of a good thing. When 60+ page annual media kits, program quick-facts, weekly game-notes, daily interviews, and minute to minute social media updates are the norm, sifting through all the noise to find the pieces of information that will help support your story line becomes a daunting task. While I’ve never actually looked for a needle in a haystack, I have searched mid-call for the last time a Colorado College Women’s Soccer player scored a hat-trick at home, at night, on their ‘alternate’ turf pitch—and I have to imagine it’s a similar kind of task (Lauren Millet, September 8, 2017 in CC’s 4-1 win over South Dakota at Washburn Field; Millet first Tiger to hat-trick since Brittany Lyman vs. UTEP on October 30, 2009 also at Washburn Field). As you can imagine, when information is in surplus, organization becomes the critical task.
Over the years I’ve come to know broadcasters at varying levels and I’m always curious how they prepare and organize information. Some hand-write notes in spiral notebooks; others type everything into boxes on a computer and print beautiful laminated boards. Drew Goodman with AT&T SportsNet covering the Colorado Rockies has an outstanding memory and keeps just a basic scorebook in front of him, but still has his resident statistician “Dougie” furiously handing chicken-scratched sticky notes over his shoulder (we should all be so lucky). To my amazement, Rick Peckham of the Tampa Bay Lightning memorizes nearly all of the information he’ll use on a call. While this approach may work for a savant like Rick, how are the rest of us to find that critical stat in just the right moment? Mark Johnson, Voice of the Colorado Buffaloes, recently expressed that he leans the direction of Rick Peckham as well—by the time he’s written down a stat or story to use on-air he’s already committed it to memory. I’ve found that to be an advantage of handwritten notes over computer-generated ones.
My Spotting Boards
Early on in my career I was fortunate to be mentored by Bryant Johnson, Voice of the Nicholls State Colonels. At that time Bryant was the Sports Director for KSPK in Colorado’s San Luis Valley and willingly shared his spotting board templates. Although they’ve progressed season to season and look quite different for each sport I call, I still use a variation of those boards to this day. During my first year calling Men’s Basketball for The Citadel these boards were taped on the desk in front of me. This allowed me to always know exactly where things were, but required taking my eyes off the floor at critical moments to find information. While calling Women’s Soccer for the Mountain West Network I began pasting my boards front and back on a pair of clipboards, keeping one reserved for the home team and the other for the visitors flipping back and forth as necessary. Once I decided I needed my hands more available during a call, my boards became taped side by side on a legal-sized file folder. I first saw this done by Tyler Maun at The University of Denver, and when jumping in to call Men’s Lacrosse for DU I followed in his footsteps. Today you’ll find my notes taped to a canvas-board from Hobby Lobby giving them enough integrity to act as their own writing surface regardless of available space (in some booths table space is at a premium). Athlete names and numbers are of biggest priority for me, along with quick facts from their bios, analysis of their skills, and anything I pick up from interviews. I always keep a section with valuable school information—the mascot, official color names, enrollment, notable alumni when available. Having a full season schedule with results available is typically the icing on the cake. Prior to game time I’ll highlight starters in an attempt to draw my eyes directly to the players most likely to be active at any given time.
How much is too much?
Over the years my preparation has changed immensely. During my first year covering The Citadel Men’s Basketball I wasted hours trying to commit complete rosters to memory. I used Index Cards with names and numbers on opposite sides hoping to recognize a player immediately. Immediately though I realized that often times the easiest way to identify a player has more to do with a haircut or choice of undershirt than the number they wear. On top of that, half of a roster won’t see the floor on a given night and that time spent memorizing can be better used elsewhere. In my first year covering Colorado College Women’s Soccer for the Mountain West Network I typed every stat into boxes corresponding to current year, prior year, and career totals. While it’s great to know every possible combination of statistics I may want to use, having an updated stat sheet available works just as well and takes far less time to produce. By year three on the MW Network my boards were printed ahead of time and stats written in by hand—and often only for the leading goal-scorers. Today I often print spotting boards an entire season at a time with prior year stats and some key story lines typed in, updating everything else by hand in the days (or hours) leading up to a game. The notes I have in a file folder ‘just in case’ are just as valuable as the spotting board in front of me. Colorado’s Mark Johnson explains that in Play by Play, compared to Color Analysis, the priority should be what’s happening on the field over what’s happening in a notebook anyway…a luxury afforded to us when we have a partner on the call. There’s a fine line between enough and too much context, and nobody wants to listen to a broadcast strangled by someone trying to prove how much research they’ve done. I agree with Mark Johnson who believes the best formula for a call is simply illustrating, “Who’s doing what, how they’re doing it, and why it’s important.”
The Takeaway
After years of compiling stats feeling haunted by the “what ifs” of a broadcast, my philosophy today is much more simple: have access to the stats and stories I’ll need, and know where to find them by the time I get there in my broadcast. Afterall, I’m driving this thing. Today, hours of frantic prep work have been replaced by strategically combing through program-produced media notes, conducting my own player and coach interviews, as well as printing out updated stats. Simply having years of experience reading box scores for various sports has considerably diminished my need for re-organization and I’m now able to draw story lines from the numbers in ways I couldn’t before. Ultimately, my years of experience on-air have given me more confidence to do it live, as they say—at least to a degree.
For those of you who also work in the industry, I would love to know more about your philosophy for preparation and techniques of organization. How has it changed over the years? Are you still searching for the right format? Maybe you’ve found the Holy Grail of templates.
Either way, let’s chat!
TM