This story was one I was looking forward to covering all semester. The 2017 Once a Mountaineer Always a Mountaineer Day of Play! The Day of Play is an event where current and former WVU athletes return to Morgantown to play with the kids and show them that getting up to move can be fun!

     

The Day of Play pulls in a lot of current professional players. This is why it means so much to me to have the opportunity to cover WVU Sports… The football program means the world to the fans, but it will always be home for the former Mountaineers.                                   

                              

I got to chat to a few athletes and they told me how they jump on any opportunity to give back to this program. That is what is so special about sports, the connections fans and players can make… Especially in college football…even more so at WVU.

I grabbed a few kids to talk to and they were mostly just excited to play! The parents were the ones that gave me a little more insight. A mother of one of the kids participating told me how this wasn’t a close drive for them, but it was worth it. They were huge Mountaineer fans and they love the fact that they give so much love and support to these athletes, and the athletes give it right back. 

All in all it was an easy and fun day! I had a blast filming and interacting and had no issues at all…so I thought. Well I get to editing and wouldn’t ya know… My audio from my stand-up was AWFUL. Even though we saw levels on the camera, the batteries were starting to go. So the levels were really just the batteries going in and out! ALWAYS WEAR YOUR HEADPHONES PEOPLE! Just one more learning experience. 

So the event was over. Now what? I tried to think of the most creative stand-up that would make sense with this story. I grabbed my camera bag, a football, and some vegetables and headed back out there (you have to watch the story to understand). I ended up, with what was probably, one of my favorite stand-ups of the semester! I feel like I can add, “experienced with turning lemons into lemonade” on my resume. That is a huge part of this job that people don’t know about. You are always rolling with the punches. There is never a dull moment and you always have to be on your toes. 

     

After everything was said and done I had a story I was proud of. The show went very well, and ESPNU picked up my package. Things don’t always work out the way you want, but that is where you have to make a, excuse the sports reference, game-time-decision. Sometimes I feel like I am the athlete… coming up with a game plan on how I am going to attack a story, or how can I recover after a bad first half… P.S. always double-check your audio.