Musing on why sports broadcasting makes a great vocation. This post is actually an essay I wrote for a class I am taking as part of the graduate program I am in. I just copy and pasted exactly what I wrote. It’s very honest and straightforward. I hope you appreciate my vulnerability and commentary here.
As I write this, I feel as though parts of what I am about share my sound incredibly “high on me” or myself. I don’t feel good about trying to explain myself at times. Other times I do feel good. “Tell me why,” people say. “Why would you pick something as difficult as sports broadcasting?” Well, how exactly do I explain a deep sense of call?
I will explain some of the short term rewards.
There is nothing more special than a text many years after a game has been played, a text that is a thank you from an athlete. Someone who loves you as the soundtrack of some of the most exciting moments of their lives. I cannot explain the feeling of sharing the story of a little boy who has cancer, but is now performing the coin toss. Or calling the homecoming football game.
Adrian College wins the football game! The team storms the field!
You become an artist. The airwaves are your canvas, and your vocal cords become your paintbrush. The puck skeeters and jumps along as you control the cadance and story of the game. The tailback pinballs and then battering rams through the line of scrimmage.
Brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, grandparents and fans cling to televisions and radios as you work through the game. Finally the moment of joy as the ball sails to the endzone and pure ecstasy as the freshman from Indiana slams home a tremendous dunk.
Do what you love
My understanding of vocation has grown. “Do what you love,” has always been the staple of my advice. But trying to understand why? Because you’ll be better at it? Because why would you spend your life doing something that you dislike?
And why do it? Why does it matter that I become better than I am now?
It’s just not that simple.
I want to touch more people’s lives. I want to impact more people and reach more people. I want to travel and experience and learn and share that with others. I want to use my reach for good. I want to make other people happy. That has always been the best part. How happy my art makes people. And how happy it makes me to hear what they have to say about it.
I am aspiring to become nationally recognized as a play-by-play broadcaster and voice actor. Watch part of my reel below
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— Gabriel Schray (@schrayguy) February 27, 2020
Media in this article courtesy of Hollie Smith Photography. For more sports, news and entertainment, follow us on Twitter @MWSNsports or like the MWSN page on Facebook.
