News
Students broadcast basketball play-by-play live
January 23, 2012
Senior Peter Hoffman provides the play-by-play while senior Nate Goodhart provides color commentary during the Summit-New Miami boys’ basketball game.
A group of Upper School students are learning the fundamentals of broadcast radio by providing live online coverage of Summit home basketball games.
The pilot project has been spearheaded by Middle School Religion Teacher Rich Hoyt. A former Head Boys’ Basketball coach at The Summit, Mr. Hoyt now provides live broadcast color commentary during Xavier University Women’s Basketball games at www.goxavier.com.
Summit student broadcasts are carried on the Local Sports Radio web site at www.localsportsradio.com. Senior Peter Hoffman has done play-by-play when Summit played North College Hill, New Miami and Reading. So far, seniors Nate Goodhart and Mark Samaan have provided color commentary but other students have expressed an interest in participating in future games.
“This is a first for The Summit,” says Mr. Hoyt. “The goal was go get it going with basketball to see if there is enough student interest. There is a lot of prep work involved to do a good job. You have to talk to a lot of people and prepare a lot of information before the game. If enough students become interested, it could be expanded to other sports.”
Peter says he and the color commentators prepare enough material to do up to 10 minutes of pre-game discussion and a half-time recap, plus enough filler material to last them as needed for an average one-and-a-half hour broadcast. “It’s hard to fill the time,” Peter says. “You have to have substance to talk about the players, the coaches and the game. We’ve had a few blowouts where it’s been really tough because there’s not a lot to say during the play-by-play.”
Sports broadcasting has become a hobby for Mr. Hoyt in the last two years. He has been creating podcast interviews with area coaches on his personal sports web site and joined the XU broadcast team last year.
Students plan to provide play-by-play and color for the remaining home games when the Silver Knights play Seven Hills on Tuesday, Jan. 24; Cincinnati Country Day on Friday, Jan. 27; St. Bernard-Elmwood Place on Friday, Feb. 3 and North College Hill on Friday, Feb. 10. Listen live or replay the previous games by going here.
