Not many people realize how lucky they are to be in Southern California, and have eight professional sports teams within MLB, NHL, NFL and NBA to cheer on. This means there are many opportunities for college students and graduates looking to work in the sports industry to find a job with a sports organization.

I have played hockey since I was five years old, and being an Anaheim Ducks fan my whole life, my dream job was to work in any position for the Ducks. Fortunately and by God’s blessing, In September 2016, I was offered a job with FOX Sports to work Ducks home games. Getting a call and being told I was going to get paid to watch Ducks games seemed too good to be true.

This opportunity all stemmed from taking an introduction to Sports Management class with Dr. Cattau in the Fall of 2015. One of our assignments was to interview a person in a sports-related job that you have never met before. I chose to interview Jeff Noviello, Anaheim Ducks statistician. The interview went great and we continued to communicate with each other as the Ducks season went on.

The next year I took Journalism and chose to write an article on the kickoff of the Ducks season. I again interviewed Noviello for quotes in the article. The day after I conducted the interview, Noviello called me and told me there was an opening for FOX Sports to be a broadcast statistician for the Ducks home games.

I showed up two hours before game time with an empty arena in front of me and got my stat sheets ready to go for the game against the Phoenix Coyotes. My job as the broadcast statistician is to take stats of the game, and then give those stats to the play-by-play and color analyst in the broadcast booth. The Ducks play-by-play broadcaster is John Ahlers and color analyst is Brian Hayward. Ahlers and Hayward are an awesome duo to work with and are great to listen to when watching a Ducks game on TV.

There were many highlights of my first season working for FOX. The best and most memorable was working the last game of the 2016-17 season, where the Ducks played the Los Angeles Kings. This game was memorable because it was Hall of Fame broadcaster Bob Miller’s final game in the booth. I got to meet Miller and hear stories of his 44-year career. Some other memorable moments were getting to work for the Montreal Canadiens’ French telecast and working the first round of the 2017 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

The Ducks will be kicking off their 2017-18 season this week, with six of their first seven games at Honda Center. The Ducks will be looking to build on their Western Conference Finals loss last season to the Nashville Predators. Most of the team is returning this season, including Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry, John Gibson and Ryan Kesler. The expectations are high for this year’s team and they should be an exciting team to watch. Go to anaheimducks.com to check out the Ducks schedule and buy tickets for games.

Tags: alumnus

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