A LONG TIME AGO, IN A TV STATION FAR, FAR AWAY
It was a cold night in late December 2000. I had only been in this business for six months and was still very green, working at WILX in Lansing as a sports reporter. (Once upon a time my dream was to become the next star of SportsCenter.) On this night, I was at the Joe covering Michigan State's hockey team competing in the Great Lakes Invitational Tournament. My job was to get post game sound and then zip over to WDIV and feed it back. I can still remember how easy our weekend anchor Ben Holden made it sound (because he had worked there before) and how terrified I was to walk into our Detroit affiliate. Just stroll into the place where first names were legendary: Carmen, Devin, Bernie, Chuck... and on this night Fred -- as in Fred MacLeod. The game ended and I got my interviews and tried to navigate to the station which has its own garage and entry procedure -- which in itself blew my mind. As I walked in to find my sports contact, I might as well have been walking into the Taj Mahal. "Wow," was all I remember saying as I looked around the lobby and high ceilings. I got to the sports office and was amazed at how big it was compared to ours. Fred was going over the highlights the producer had put together and running down his script. I was watching Freddy Mac practice his sportscast! They held my hand and we fed back my interviews to Ben for his show at WILX and the guys took a quick bite for their show at WDIV. Mind you, all of this was a quick turnaround too. While I was in awe, I was also in a hurry to get it done, get it fed, and get it on the air since it was almost 11 p.m.
Everything was finished and I had nothing to do but hit the road back to Lansing. The producer asked if I wanted to come to the control room and watch sports... (*Mind blown*). The control room had more monitors, more equipment, more people than we even had room for in our Lansing studio. As I watched the anchors read a couple stories and tease to sports I just thought how professional and sophisticated it seemed. "Does it get better than this anywhere else in the country?" I thought.
They came back from break and Fred smoothed through a flawless sportscast and even knocked out his overnight show during the last commercial break. That's what really amazed me because overnights were such a hassle and took 10-15 minutes sometimes for us. The funny thing is, I never once imagined myself in the sports chair, let alone the anchor chair, as I watched. It seemed like such an unattainable goal.
Fast forward 15 years and three months to a couple Saturdays ago when I filled in on the night show anchoring the news for Steve Gariagola. It didn't dawn on me until the show was over and I was walking through the same control room exactly how far I'd come in my life. This was the same room where I stood like a know-nothing newbie watching something I couldn't wrap my head around. I said to our producer Chris Page, "If you told me 15 years ago, 'You're going to be on that desk one day-- not doing sports-- but anchoring the news,' I would've never believed you."
It's another reminder of just how lucky I am to be where I am. I mean, my career almost never happened! But that's a story for another time. Until then, I'm very happy to be here and yes, still amazed at how far I've come. Now, if I can just muster the courage to talk to Carmen...