Student Broadcasting

High School’s STUDENT BROADCASTING

This is why Ensworth is such an amazing school, because it has something for everyone to prepare for the years ahead while pursuing our goals.

Kendall Ungar ’23

While the Ensworth community implemented many significant changes this school year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of technology and the required infrastructure was largely already in place. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the student athletics broadcasts that provided a lifeline to families and friends who were not able to attend games.

A team of students runs the broadcasts, from announcers to cameramen to sideline reporters. The high production quality includes instant replay and multiple cameras.

Students have been assisting with game broadcasts at Ensworth for over ten years, although the technology and personnel have increased. William Joy ’10 remembers the early days when the football coaches used one wide-angle camera to record games.

“Part of that was for game footage to review from a coaching standpoint,” William recalls. “But then they decided to just stream it live so that people could watch the game. I approached them and said, ‘Hey, let’s try to do some play-by-play and color commentary for that.’”

Assisted by IT staff Jason Hiett and Jason Robinson, Joy began play-by-play and color commentating with math teacher and coach, Walter Schultz. A year later, Ensworth began streaming basketball games in the same way.

Joy recalls the challenges and resulting lessons from the broadcast experience. “If you’re doing play-by-play, you have to fill a lot of time,” he explains. “You have to be very comfortable having a conversation on air. I think people underestimate how difficult it is to just go when somebody says ‘You’re live’ and start talking. And that pause there, that hesitation, is tough to get by. It’s more of a wall than people admit, and being able to do the broadcast club for four years helped tremendously.”

Over the years, the student broadcasts have increased in both available technology and the number of students on the crew. Sophomore Kendell Ungar served this year as the first sideline reporter for Tiger football games. “From a very young age, this is the occupation I have dreamt of having one day, and I hope to make that happen,” she says.

When she first toured Ensworth’s Frist Campus before moving from New Jersey, she mentioned that she was interested in broadcasting as a career to High School Director of Admission, Ann West, who told her about the student broadcasting program. “Coming to Ensworth from the north,” she explains, “having sports broadcasting at a high school is something I have never seen before. This is why Ensworth is such an amazing school because it has something for everyone to prepare for the years ahead while pursuing our goals.”

Seniors Max Keller and Jasper Bosch run the on-air commentary from the press box. Keller, like Ungar, has always dreamed of making broadcasting his career. “I have watched and learned from commentators my whole life,” he says. Whereas national sports broadcasts have full production teams including statisticians, not so with high school sports. “The hardest part of being involved with student broadcasting at the high school level,” Max explains, “is the lack of available statistics and reliable rosters to push the broadcast to the next level.” He has continued to commentate basketball games this year for the Tigers. All of the colleges he has applied to have a strong broadcast journalism program.

Sophomore Tripp Johnson joined due to his interest in the technical aspect of live broadcasting. “I signed up for an elective in eighth grade, and one day they brought us to the High School to look at the equipment. I asked if I could come up to the press box during one of the football games. Mr. Robinson said yes, and I’ve been to every home game since then.” Tripp runs the complicated instant replay system for the team.

As the basketball season gets into full swing, tune in on EnsworthLive. com to support not only the players but also the dedicated student broadcasting crew who help the Ensworth community stay connected.

Broadcasting Alumni Making a Mark

William Joy’s ’10 experience in broadcasting led him to pursue sports reporting in college, enrolling in the University of Missouri, home to a renowned journalism school that was the first of its kind in the world. While at Mizzou, his career path evolved from sports reporting to news reporting. Since graduating, he has worked as an on-air reporter for stations in Louisville, Charleston, and Kansas City. Racking up an Associated Press and two Emmys, he is now a general assignment reporter for WFAA in the Dallas-Fort Worth market.

A number of other alumni have taken their high school broadcasting experience to the next level, such as Bradley Hardcastle ’11 who went on to Texas Christian University to pursue journalism, serving as reporter, anchor, and producer for TCU’s general news and sports talk television shows.

Holden Craig ’16 also matriculated to TCU where he was involved in sports media and radio. He recently returned to his hometown to work as Athletics Communications Coordinator at Harding Academy. His Ensworth classmate Sam Fleming attended Samford University where his business degree has led him to internships at the Birmingham Barons, the New Orleans Saints, and the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame.

2019 graduate Carter Bainbridge called football, basketball, and soccer for four years for the Tigers. Now at Syracuse University pursuing a degree in broadcast journalism, Carter has covered sports for two local radio stations. His classmate, Ben Sundock, has continued feeding his passion for sports by writing for sports blogs on the Tennessee Titans and Real Madrid.

Paul Downey ‘92 Assistant Director of Marketing & Communications