Q 1. Why Journalism?
A.
I always liked, I still do, you know, watching sports on any day that I can. It
was always Baseball for me because I picked up a baseball when I was about
four. Um, so that was always my favorite to watch. I did play Basketball too,
but I wasn’t never really good at it. I made it my freshman year of high
school, but then sophomore year is when I got the cut, which was okay because
then I could focus more on baseball.
But
um, just kind of watching everything, you know, 6th, 7th,
or 8th grade was one of those three when we stated taking those
tests in middle school to see what you wanted to be, and mine always came out
like a truck driver. And I’m like, “I don’t wanna be a truck driver.”
I
think every kid always, you know, you sit around the lunch table and you talk
about Sports. And you’re always like, “man, this would be really cool to do
professionally.” I wanted to do that, then when high school rolled around, you
gotta start thinking about college. So sophomore, junior year, you start
looking at programs that have Journalism, specifically Sports Emphasis.
Schools
were.. I was a good student, I was not a great student. My GPA was fine but I
was never really good, and I’m still not very good at standardized tests. So I
always thought that that was going to limit me. So I actually applied to seven
schools, and I only actually got into three: I got into Ohio University, which
is where I went; Marist, which is in Poughkeepsie; and DePaul, which is in
Chicago. Marist was the first one I visited, so naturally I was like, “oh this
is awesome, but then it slowly started to fall down because I just didn’t like
it so much anymore.”
I
visited University of Pittsburgh, and I loved it, so.. but this is the funny
story that I tell a lot of people: “It was my senior year, and I applied to
seven schools, and I applied early action to Pitt because I really liked it, I
liked Pittsburgh, I liked the University, it had good sports and stuff like
that. I was always checking the mail, so I checked the mail, and you know if
you get a small letter then usually you aren’t getting in, if you get a big
one, then you are.”
So
I get a small letter from Pitt, I open it, and they send me to a branch campus
so in my opinion that was a ‘no.’ So I remember I was up in my room, and I was
kind of upset because that was pretty much my number one school. Later in the
night, my mom comes in and I think I was doing homework, and she comes in with
a big smirk on her face and I was like, “what?” And she goes, “you didn’t check
the mail very thoroughly, did you?”
And
I was like, “no.” And she pulls a letter from behind her back, and it’s an
acceptance letter to Ohio University. And I was like, “wow, I just went through
every single emotion in the span of like five hours.” Once I stepped foot on
that campus, “I was like, man, this campus is gorgeous.” So it was pretty easy
for me once I got in, I declared like in January that I was gonna go there. I
studied Journalism and had a minor in Sports Management as well.
Q
2. What brings you to Syracuse University for a Graduate program?
A.
I obviously have heard of Syracuse before because it’s just the next state over
from Connecticut. However, I didn’t think I had the grades necessarily to get
in form high school. Again, my grades were fine, it was just the standardized
tests that I knew was gonna limit me so I never actually even pulled the
trigger on applying here, just cause I thought it’d be a waste of money for the
application fee.
But
junior year of undergrad, I was thinking of going to grad school and again, I
looked at Master’s programs that were very similar, and this one, and Arizona
State were the two that I actually applied to. I had family in Arizona so that
one was kind of easy. Coming up here, a little different cause I’ve never been
up here but still close enough that I can go home on a needed basis if I needed
to. So I applied to both on the same day, and I did not get into Arizona State.
I heard from them I believe in the middle of February, and Syracuse said they
would let us know on March 1st. March 1st, I get in, and
funny thing is I thought it’d be the other way around. I still had this mindset
that I was not gonna get into Syracuse, and I would get into Arizona State. It
was the other way around.
I
remember being frantic, and I called my brother and he was like, “you should
probably let mom and dad know because one, they’re the ones who pay your
tuition; and two, they’re gonna be the biggest help to you. So, I remember
calling my mom and dad then scheduled to come out here for a preview day. Three
weeks later, sent my deposit to come here. So, it’s been an interesting.. But
I’ve always had Syracuse on my radar since high school.
Q
3. Who do you look up to in the industry?
A.
Well I think having ESPN headquartered in Connecticut, I think a lot of the
ESPN guy’s come to mind: Scott Van Pelt, one; alum here, Mike Torico’s one;
Liam McHugh, another alum is another. I just, I like different styles that
everybody has, and I think when people are either play-by-play or sideline, or
studio host, I just kind of adopt a lot of different styles from a lot of
people. And I think, they bring different backgrounds, which I like, which is
the reason why I went to Ohio. Because I’ve never been, but I knew a lot of
people would have different backgrounds. Kind of the same reason, and what I’ve
picked up here in grad school, is that people haven’t necessarily just come
straight from undergrad such as myself, you included. Others have worked in the
industry for a couple of years’, others took breaks, others came from many
University’s throughout the country. So seeing everybody’s different backgrounds,
and seeing what they’ve worked in was just kind of a reason why. “If I can
mimic one, I don’t know.”
Q
4. What are some things people don’t know about you?
A.
Not like this impacts me most, but I only have one cousin. And it’s funny
because I’m Italian, and you know, you would think people who are Italian have
big families. My dad is an only child, my mom is one of three; she’s the
youngest. She has an older sister, and a brother who’s older than her. Her
older sister married, only had one kid. And another I guess, is I never
actually met my uncle. He’s living, he lives in Texas, but he’s never been
around. My cousin’s the only who met him, one time. He’s the only one who met
him, and it was kind of an awkward, forced meeting. I’m the youngest, I’m only
21, my brother’s 24, and my cousin’s 28. So now we’re to the point where we’re
like, way past the point, where now it’d just be like a forced meeting. It’s
kind of weird because he is family, but like he’s kind of not. My brother and I
have never met him. My mom doesn’t think we’re ever gonna meet him so. I do
have a small family.
Q
5. What do you aspire to do in your career?
A.
I would like to do either sideline reporting, or be like a studio host. I never
got into play-by-play, and in my opinion, it’s too late for that now. But
during my undergrad, I would be on the sidelines for a lot of high school
football games. My favorite moment was my junior year of high school: a high
school team that we covered made it all the way to the State Tournament Final,
and they played in the football hall of fame stadium in Ohio. That was where
their state championship games were played, and I got to be on that field, and
I was like man, “the people who have been on this field and stuff,” like that
was really cool. Studio host would be cool too, just kind of standing around a
desk with a couple of people looking at boards and stuff, breaking down you
know, intermission for like hockey or breaking down a golf round, or baseball
game. Something like that, it’s basically unscripted because unscripted things
are the best. It’s basically what you see, and just raw emotion: “I think it’s
just better when you don’t have to script things.”
Q
6. What is golf to you?
A.
It’s kind of how golf started with me. I picked up a baseball when I was four,
and then I got my first set of golf clubs when I was 12. But the problem was,
it conflicted with baseball. In Connecticut, golf and baseball were played in
the same season in the Spring; and it would screw up my swing tremendously from
baseball to golf. I didn’t play golf as much as I wanted to. There was never a
debate that I was gonna stop playing baseball to go play golf. Golf was just a
secondary Sport that I could enjoy during the Summer. As I got older, towards
high school, I started liking Golf a little more. My junior year of high school
was kind of a rough year because I didn’t play as much as I wanted to; I didn’t
see eye to eye with my coach. He actually was my fifth grade Language Arts
teacher, who we had a great relationship when I was what nine. I grew up, and
we didn’t see eye to eye anymore so my love for baseball took a little bit of a
dip. I knew that I was never gonna play college baseball but that was kind of
the cherry on top that said, “once high school baseball’s over, you are done
playing competitively.
You
can throw the baseball around with your brother, or play old man’s softball,
which I did but you know, coaching, training, all that stuff was done. My
senior year, it wasn’t that I was looking forward to baseball to end, but I was
definitely ready to go on to the next step. People ask me do I miss baseball,
“of course I miss it,’ but my body doesn’t miss it. Now that I fully made the
switch to golf, there’s no coaches. I’ve never had a golf lesson, and I don’t
really plan to because I’m content with how I play. I’ve never played
competitively, and I don’t ever see myself: strictly for leisure. My dad plays
it, he gave me the first set of clubs for Christmas; and my brother and I play
it. My brother and I will have the competition but that’s just strictly,
brother to brother, we’ve been having our entire lives’.
Golf
is a sport where you can’t yell at anybody but yourself, or you yell at the
golf ball. To me it’s just so fun, even if I’m having a bad round. I’d rather
have a bad day on a golf course, than a good day at school or work. To me,
golf, it’s leisure but now to me, it’s becoming like my life. It’s just such an
enjoyable sport for me to watch. I know people think it’s so boring to watch
but I get great joy watching it. I’m not trying to mimic what those pros are doing,
because I can’t. However, I still think it takes great skill to hit a ball very
close to a cup, and the different course layouts and stuff; the wind factor,
and fan experience.
Connecticut
has a PGA Tour event that comes, every, I believe June. I’ve been going there
ever since sheesh, probably since I first started taking an interest to Golf.
So I’ve been going for about 10 years now, every year, and it just gets better
and better just to watch in person. I got a couple of golf balls, I don’t
remember who they were signed by because when I was younger, now I kind of
realized that sometimes those guy’s don’t really want kid’s in their faces
because they’re trying to do a job.
Now
I kind of taken a step back, and just enjoy everything that goes into golf from
the announcers doing it: they’re constantly hopping form every different hole
on the golf course to the people who get to walk behind. That would probably be
another one of the cool things I’d get to do: walk behind a group, and just
kind of say, “he’s got 175-yards, winds coming 12 miles an hour from his left
to his right, pins over here, stuff like that.” I’ve definitely mimicked a lot
stuff from watching the PGA Tour a lot.
Q.
7 Where do you see yourself a year from now?
A.
It’s funny that the sport that I grew up in, grew up playing, actually has
moved down to my level three that I would like to work in. I like working with
teams more than I like working with local news. I think when you work with a
team, you get to travel with them, you get to spend time with them, eat with
them. I covered my undergrad’s baseball team for all four years’, so that’s
kind of the reason why I like that. However, it’s funny where I think I would
like to work with the PGA Tour. You would travel a lot, sure, but you would
always be in warm weather environments. Following them around would be cool, or
doing like pre-shows or post-shows. You know, breaking down rounds,
interviewing the player’s after with not a jumbotron but a little screen where
you’re like let’s take you down, “talk me through what was going through your
mind on hole 6 when you’re 200 yards away with the wind howling in your face.”
And then also hockey, I really took a liking to hockey. My dad played when he
was young and he played in college; my brother and I never played so it’s kind
of funny how two sports that I never played competitively, I would love to work
in. Whereas a sport that I played my whole life has moved down to my level
three.
Q.
8 Nick Ursini is?
A.
Somebody who always likes to bring what his background, his knowledge to
something but knows that my answer is not always the right answer, and it’s not
always the answer that people wanna hear. I’m very blunt, sometimes I give off
harsh criticisms but I do it because simply, it’s the truth, and I think that
people need to hear the truth. That’s the only way they’re gonna learn and get
better, but I know that I’m young, and very young in my career where, it
depends on who I say that to, and how I say it because that won’t always work.
I always like feedback, I know I can take it: I’ve dealt with it from my
parent’s to coaches, to professors to producers. I’m never satisfied with
anything, I’m my biggest critique, and I think that’s huge in this industry. I
guess understanding that you can’t always bring your A-game every single time,
but still having that mindset where don’t get lazy because somebody will work
harder than you.
I
was never the most gifted in anything: I was never the most gifted in Sports, I
was never the most gifted in the classroom. I was kind of a late bloomer with
like, everything. To me, it’s kind of been like an uphill battle. I’ve always
been compared to my older brother so now it’s just steering my own path. We
have a lot of similarities, and I look up to him but we’re very different: he’s
a mechanical engineer, he got the Math part of the genes, I’m a journalist who
does not know how to do a lot of Math.
Q.
9 How do you want to be remembered by?
A.
Somebody who was working hard, and always wanted to do the extra thing: not
necessarily do something risky but do something that is just more challenging.
Go do a live shot when it’s 20 degrees, and three phones are freezing, I know
because it’s happened. And I had to put a hand warmer on my phone and press it
against my leg just so my phone would heat up so I’d have not only connection
to the studio, 70 miles away, but also so I could read my script and stuff.
I’ve had some memorable moments in doing live shots in cold weather football games
in the state of Ohio.
Just,
somebody who’s always eager to learn because I know I don’t know everything,
and I know I can always get better at stuff. It’s always somebody who is just
trying to get better at anything: annunciating words, controlling your
breathing, your voice be a little bit better. That’s how I’d like to be
remembered with my classmates, professors, and anybody who I work with in the
field.
Q.
10. Anything else you want to add?
A.
Not that I wasn’t anxious coming here just because it was a new environment,
but I knew if I could do it when I was 17 going to Ohio, I knew I can do it
when I was 21 coming here after four years’ of being away from home.
That
was one thing that I thought was very important for me to get home, and that
was the thing that was very uncommon for my hometown. A lot of people went to
state schools, a lot of people stayed in the tri state area, as you know from
being from, New Jersey. A lot of people stayed in the Northeast, including my
brother. So I thought it was important for me to get out to not only challenge
myself to live in a different environment, meet new people, and embrace the
whole different culture that was Southeast Ohio; that was personal. And then
when it got to professional, learning everything that was new about Ohio. The
high school sports in Ohio, it’s big, Ohio’s a big state, a lot bigger than
Connecticut. That was a big learning curve. I’m excited, there’s a lot of
opportunity here. It’s quick, I know they keep emphasizing, we only have a year;
and they’re right, they’re throwing a lot at us in only a short period of time
but I’m excited for it. It should be fun.
No comments:
Post a Comment