Media Participation Project - Alex Flum

For my media participation project, I contacted WMUC Sports and applied to be a play-by-play commentator on a broadcast crew. In my application I listed football, men's soccer and women's soccer as my top editions. I was selected to be on the broadcast crew for women's soccer. This was very exciting for me because in high school I started a broadcasting program at my high school and wanted to continue to broadcast in college. In high school I broadcasted many different basketball games. I was a little nervous for the soccer games because I had never broadcasted a soccer game before. 

The first soccer game I broadcasted was August 31, against NC State. I was a little nervous, but I was very excited. It didn't exactly start off too well as I we walked into the broadcast booth, opened the blinds and a ton of yellow jackets were flying around. The PR crew in the broadcast booth sprayed the bugs and cleaned the room. It seemed like everything was going fine, but then the game was delayed several hours because of rain. Eventually, the game finally started and the broadcast went great. It was a little tough to know all the player's names but as the game went on it became easier and easier. 

Throughout the rest of the season, I broadcasted a couple other games. I did the game against Michigan on September 19 and October 17 against Northwestern. I think this was a great experience for me because it gave me an opportunity to widen my repertoire of sports I can broadcast. For the winter, I am going to apply to become a commentator for one of the basketball teams. You can listen to a sample of the broadcast of the game against Michigan on September 19 here.