Two years into my first job in McPherson, Kansas, the play-by-play gig at the University of Kentucky opened. Cawood Ledford had passed away. I naively thought I could go from doing McPherson High School games to the Kentucky Wildcats.
I must have spent 20 hours trying to find the best stuff for my demo.
Stupid.
Choose from your most recent work
Your latest work is representative of where you are in your development, for better or for worse. You’re either giving time and score consistently, or you’re not. You’re either pinpointing the ball consistently, or not. If you’re not doing it in your most recent work, you likely weren’t doing it three or four months ago.
When I was building that demo for UK, I was listening and reviewing football and basketball from the most two recent seasons, looking for what I thought belonged on a demo. Great action. No stumbles. Clever words and phrases. Segments that sounded smooth — where I didn’t get so confused, or fall so far behind the action, that there were odd pauses while I was trying to figure things out.
It turns out none of that is what employers were listening for.
They want to hear fundamentals of time and score, pinpointing the ball and description. Employers want to hear you telling a story with plots and sub plots and character development. They want to hear you recapping and using your voice as an instrument.
You should be improving with every broadcast. You latest broadcast should be your best and your best is what should be on your demo.
