SYRACUSE, N.Y. - As the only girl on her dad’s side of the family in over 100
years, Mary Peters had no problems fitting in with the boys.
Peters, an Iowa native, spent her childhood in her backyard
playing sports with her little brother and cousins while also going to Iowa
Hawkeye football and basketball games.
She would also attend Hawkeye football games with her
grandpa who had season tickets, that’s where it all began for Peters.
Though an avid sports fan, sports broadcasting wasn’t always
the goal. Peters originally majored in Speech Pathology as an undergraduate at the University of
Minnesota, but found herself really missing sports. It wasn’t long before
Peters found what she was missing.
“I got an internship with KFAN Sports Radio and absolutely
fell in love and I was like this is what I need to be doing,” Peters said.
Peters has since called gymnastics events and hockey during her undergrad at Minnesota. Now a graduate student majoring in Boadcast Journalism at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, Peters aims to broadcast in her favorite sport, college football.
That tradition on Saturday of watching football all day,
from College GameDay in the morning, to the postgame at night, is something the
Peters' family enjoys together no matter where they live. Peters has cousins in
London and Norway, but that doesn’t stop the family from emailing each other
after gameday on Saturday.
“My cousin in London has Big Ten Network To Go, so he’s
watching the game from London, my other cousin is watching from Norway, so we
usually email afterwards. It’s kind of been a family tradition,” Peters said.
The next tradition for the Peters family might be watching
Mary Peters call a college football game.
Link to audio of interview found here.
Q: I’m speaking to Mary Peters from Iowa. Is that correct?
A: Yes
Q: How did you get into sports?
A: I grew up as the only girl on my dad’s side and we were
all very close. So, we had my boy cousins and my little brother and we would
all play sports in the backyard. Grandma and grandpa raised my dad and his
three brothers, we went to football games and basketball games, and in Iowa,
that’s the main thing people do. People travel for hours upon hours to go to an
Iowa Hawkeye football game. So, my grandpa had season tickets, he always took
all of the kids to every single game and that’s where it began. Ever since
then, my parents have been taking us to quite a few games, as many as we can
make it to, basketball is huge as well so we’d head down to the basketball
games, so it’s kind of a family thing and it’s been a part of our family. We’d
play in the backyard, it was just what we did.
Q: Did your little brother or cousins, how did they treat
you being the only girl into sports? Did they give you a hard time?
A: I was usually shorter so that hurt me a little bit, but
no it wasn’t anything different. I was the first girl in over 100 years so I
never felt different. I would always get spoiled from grandpa every now and
then, but we always did the same thing, it was never “oh, you can’t do this”
that’s just how it worked.
Q: You’re in broadcast journalism, correct?
A: Yes
Q: Do you want to be someone who focuses on football and
basketball since that’s something you grew up with, or do you want to be in
sports in general?
A: I’ve done a couple different sports. In Minnesota, I had
to do a gymnastics meet which I’ve never done before. I also did hockey, which
in Iowa, isn’t a huge sport. So, I had to learn quite a bit about that, but my
favorites were definitely football and basketball. So, a dream would be college
football and college basketball would be a second, but since we grew up going
to those football games every year, that’s something is strong in our family,
we’d watch the games every week, one of my uncles went to Minnesota and my dad
and one of his brothers went to Iowa, so every year we’d go to the Minnesota
vs. Iowa football game as a family. That tradition is something that I love. I
love sitting down on Saturday and watching football literally from College
Gameday start, until 11pm postgame.
Q: Now that you’re in Syracuse, do you still communicate
with your father or anyone else in your family during gameday, or do you just
stay to yourself?
A: Well, we haven’t had a fall hear yet, so I’m not quite
sure, but they were in Iowa and I was in Minnesota working a lot of the Gopher
games, so I’d get up early, do cardio to beginning of College Gameday, then
head into the stadium. I would talk to my grandma a lot, I always try to take
her to one Iowa game every year, but we usually talk after. It’s kind of like a
whole email because I have family in London and Norway, as well. So, my cousin in London has Big Ten Network To Go, so he’s
watching the game from London, my other cousin is watching from Norway, so we
usually email afterwards. It’s kind of been a family tradition.
Q: When you were a kid, did you inspire to work in broadcast
or is this something you noticed you wanted to do in high school and college?
A; I think it was always in the back of my mind, but it was
never something that I thought I could do, which is a really dumb excuse, but I
started out at Minnesota wanting to do speech pathology and working with kids
because my aunt and uncle adopted four kids, so I kind of grew up learning
about that and how the whole system works and that’s something that’s really
important to me being about to help those kids, but as I got going, I started
to really, really miss sports. I wasn’t doing as well in classes as normal. I
usually do pretty well and I wasn’t doing as well. So, I started personal
training and specialized in working with athletes, loved it. I got an internship with KFAN Sports Radio and
absolutely fell in love and I was like this is what I need to be doing. I’m
trying to remember when I switched, end of sophomore beginning of junior year,
one of those two times I switched my major to sports management and mass
communications as a minor. It kind of took off from there, made some connections
and started jumping into TV as well and fell in love with it.
Q: Alright, well thank you for your time.
A: Yeah, thank you.
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