By Paul Vigna
The third annual Temple Sports Summit and Associated Press Sports Editors’ Mid-Atlantic Region meeting took place Monday at the Howard Gittis Student Center South on the school’s main campus.
Between signups and walkups, about 190 people attended at different points throughout the day. The event also was live-tweeted.
Peter King, of si.com and MMQB.com, was the keynote speaker. Panels on interviewing and how social media has changed the coverage of sport drew panelists from radio, TV and print. The final panel of the day assembled the four play-by-play voices of Philly’s pro sports teams, and the event also included a job fair and mock interview session right before lunch.
Students were charged a nominal fee of $5. Temple alum J. Russell Peltz, of Peltz Boxing, sponsored the lunch.
Here’s a summary of all the panels, courtesy of a pair of Temple University student reporters.
Art of the Interview
The first panel was The Art of the Interview, and featured Ron Burke, an anchor/reporter for Comcast SportsNet; Jon Johnson, host of the WIP radio show; Mike Sielski, of the Philadelphia Inquirer; and Dana O’Neil, who is a senior writer for ESPN. Matt Fine, an assistant professor in Temple’s Department of Media Studies and Production and the executive producer of OwlsSports Update, was the moderator.
The panel kicked off with questions about what valuable lessons these four had to share with the many in attendance who were eager to one day be in their positions. Each of the panelists had unique stories, from Johnson talking trash on the Flyers with Paul Holmgren right behind him to Burke shaking like a leaf during his first on-air interview, and each story was backed with important advice.
“You have to keep your ears open when you’re interviewing someone,” said Sielski after discussing an interview where Jakob Vorachek casually mentioned that his father defected from the Czech Republic. “You never know where it might take you.”
O’Neil later shared a story that she got into sports journalism at The Daily Collegian because she wanted to meet Joe Paterno.
“For me it was a love of sports, marrying a love of writing, and getting stupid lucky,” said O’Neil.
Another interesting question from the audience was if the ownership of the panelists’ respective news outlets dictated the questions they asked.
“My responsibility is solely to the viewer,” Burke responded.
“The minute you think this job has anything to do with you, you have jumped the shark,” O’Neil said. “You are only the vessel.”
At the conclusion of the panel, the members gave some final advice on how to succeed in their business.
“Apply to anything and everything in the field you’re going into,” Johnson said. “Be persistent. Call them.”
O’Neil added: “You’re doing yourself an incredible disservice if you aren’t writing in college. The only way to do this job is to do this job.”
After their time was up, the four panelists stuck around to meet some of the students and answer additional questions.
– Aaron Carney is a junior journalism student at Temple University. Aaron has a passion for sports writing and is constantly harassed for wearing his Dallas Cowboys apparel around Philadlephia. In his spare time, Aaron enjoys attending concerts around the city trying to discover new artists as well as watch movies. He is a regular contributor to The Temple News and also has his own blog, The Commissioner’s Address, in which he talks about his life as a fantasy football commissioner as it relates to today’s society. He can be reached at aaroncarney12@gmail.com
