3 minute read
Faculty Profile: Jay Gilmore
JAY GILMORE
JAY GILMORE’S CAREER IN SPORTS BROADCASTING started with a bang in Laredo, Texas, where one of his early assignments found him in the champagne-soaked floor of the San Antonio Spurs’ locker room following their 2002 NBA Championship win. Despite standing 6-foot-5 himself, Gilmore remembers being dwarfed by the team’s 7-foot giants David Robinson and Tim Duncan.
“When I started gravitating toward journalism as a career, I knew I wasn’t interested in talking politics or crime,” he said. “I wanted to be around and talk about something that gave people joy. So when I graduated from Middle Tennessee State University in December and found myself reporting from an NBA locker room in June, I was really living the dream.”
Following a broadcast career that also saw him spend time in Huntsville, Ala., covering college football before heading to West Palm Beach, Fla., for a four-year deal as sports director for the E.W. Scripps Company's WPTV, Gilmore left the world of television for academia in 2012 when his wife landed a job in Tennessee.
“Teaching allowed me some freedom and flexibility to still work in broadcasting on a part-time basis,” he said.
Gilmore came to the UofM by way of West Virginia University, where he served as a visiting assistant professor and taught Sports and Adventure Media courses in the Reed College of Media. In addition, Gilmore has also anchored, reported and produced for the New York Times, Sinclair Broadcast Group, American Sports Network and Outdoor Channel. Now the newest assistant professor of broadcast journalism with the Department of Journalism and Strategic Media, Gilmore has high hopes for expanding student coverage of UofM sports.
“The plan would be to work with our athletics communication department so when you see broadcasts on ESPN3 from a Memphis Tigers volleyball game, you see Memphis student journalists both in front of the cameras and behind the scenes,” said Gilmore.
Gilmore, who was hired by the UofM in August 2019, teaches a pair of classes centered on news broadcast journalism in addition to a course focused on sports broadcasting. While Gilmore’s course material runs the journalistic gamut, the bulk of it focuses on the work done in front of the camera while touching on many different aspects of broadcast news.
“I’m working to build a sports broadcasting program here, but news reporting has been the core of what we do here for a long time,” he said. “And as a sports anchor and reporter, you can’t help but get used to being around news and news reporters all day.”
Gilmore recalls his favorite time in the industry as working in the sports paradise of Florida covering the likes of Serena Williams, Tiger Woods and numerous NFL and NBA players.
“That was amazing because a lot of the athletes we watch on television have homes in South Florida,” he said. “Every single sport you could think of was right there in my backyard.”
Since arriving in the sport-loving city of Memphis, Gilmore said he sees a region perfectly suited to his vision for broadcast sports instruction at the UofM. He currently teaches courses in two lab classrooms and the TV studio in the CCFA building, where he helps students craft independently produced shows like Tiger News alongside Dr. Joe Hayden, professor in the Department of Journalism and Strategic Media.
“But beyond our work in the classroom, my goal and vision is to always have my students out there in the community,” he said. “And Memphis is such a great sports city. In an ordinary year, they’ll be out working from campus, from FedExForum or the Liberty Bowl.”
Beyond working in front of the camera, Gilmore encourages his students to be well-rounded by learning the basics of other broadcast roles such as digital content producer, news manager, writer, photographer and editor.
“A lot of hiring managers in our field are looking for candidates who are flexible and adaptable,” he said. “A single event requires a person versed in several different platforms to cover. It’s not all television. Can you create web content? Can you host a podcast? That’s where the world of broadcast is heading, and it requires versatility.”
Gilmore is also a member of the Tiger Sports Properties broadcast talent team and host of Jay's World, a podcast that can be downloaded on iTunes and Spotify.
