New Job Search: ESPN or...

[BevoisaSoxFan]

I'm guessing you heard back from Bristol and the news wans't good... If that's the case, I'm sorry to hear that ATL.

[AtlLonghorn]

Yep. An 11 month process ended in a one minute phone call. I took a lot to not tell her that espn can fuck themselves and that she sucks at her job, but I have just a little bit too much maturity for that.

[AtlLonghorn]

So this thread is back.

I continued to pursue employment across all platforms and employers so I continued to apply for jobs with ESPN. Some friends of mine who work up there went to bat for me to try and get me an interview with the Production Assistant Trainee Program. It's a seven month program with evaluations throughout and after seven months they decide to hire you full time or let you go. A PA is most often responsible for charting games and producing highlights for the various ESPN shows.

I got an email from a Highlight Supervisor asking me to do a phone interview for the program about six weeks ago. I interviewed with him and it went well enough so that he said I'd be put in the pool of candidates to be considered when a position came open. He emailed me two weeks later telling me to re-apply for the position since a spot had come open in the program. I hoped it meant an interview was near.

I got a phone call from the Bristol area code and my heart started racing. It was a woman from HR. She offered me a position with the ESPN Production Assistant Trainee program.

Wait, what? No interview? A straight up offer? Really?

That was the case. I had to think about it...for a nanosecond. I accepted the position and will be moving to Connecticut shortly after New Years and I start on January 11th. Unreal.

[HornMafia]

Outstanding news, Dan.

We expect to hear reports on Merrill Hoge's VY voodoo doll.

[Bucharest]

That, and some videos of Erin Andrews........just sayin'???

Congrats.....that's awesome news!!!!

[UTwiz]

Congrats!

[Music City Mafia]

Congrats! Hope this develops into a rewarding career for you! Make sure you don't step on Lee Corso's merkin.

[BarryBnds]

That's awesome. Congrats!!! Are you changing your moniker to ESPNLonghorn now?

[dahorns]

Congratulations

[orange dream]

I'm late to the game on this, but congratulations. That is great news.

Forget EA, I'd focus your attention on Jenn Brown.

[HornMafia]

Sooooooooo....how is it? Been forwarded Sean Salisbury penis pics yet?

[AtlLonghorn]

It's been pretty great so far. Like most jobs some days are better than others. My two main shifts right now are highlight shift and news prompting. News Prompting shifts you print the scripts and run the teleprompter for ESPN News. Those shifts are pretty boring. Highlight shifts I watch a game (or two depending on the day), plan out the highlight and work with an editor to cut the highlight. I haven't had any high priority games yet, but I'm pretty happy with the work I've done so far on the games I've had. My feedback so far has been really positive so that's encouraging.

No wild stories yet (and pics of Sean Salisbury's dong or anyone else's dong for that matter). My interactions with the anchors and analysts has been pretty minimal. I've gotten to know a couple of the News anchors a fair amount, but none of the Sportscenter anchors really. My interactions with this has been exclusively handing them the shot sheets for my highlights. Since they're in break or about to go on air they have a lot going on so there hasn't been much time for chit chat. I did have a short conversation with Scott Van Pelt about him being sick from partying and not sleeping while at the Super Bowl that was pretty funny.

[Bucharest]

Can you kick Colin Cowherd square in the nuts for me the next time you see him.

Thanks.

[AtlLonghorn]

I haven't seen Cowherd at all. I usually work nights, but when I'm in the newsroom for a prompting shift he's never there with the producers of Sports Nation so I don't see him. I will take it under advisement.

[HornMafia]

Sounds good. So is there a competition involved to see who cuts the highlights for say, the Super Bowl or somesuch?

[BevoisaSoxFan]

Good for you Atl. That's terrific to hear.

[AtlLonghorn]

The biggest games go to the best PA's. For the most part, that is the PA's who have been around for a couple of years. There is one guy who has been a PA for going on 4 or 5 years and he gets most of the big assignments. They aren't opposed to giving big games to less experienced PA's once they prove they are capable of handling the responsibility. There are also a ton of PAs so not everyone works on highlights frequently. A lot of PA's work specifically on specialty shows like Baseball Tonight or College Football Live (obviously a show I'm hoping to work on).

The Super Bowl was an interesting case. The Super Bowl had a PA assigned to the first half, one to the third quarter, one to the fourth quarter, one to the commercials and one to halftime (I think). There are also PA's assigned to three or four games a night to cut them for ESPN News, but for the Super Bowl there were at least two assigned specifically to the game. On Super Bowl Sunday I had some bullshit college basketball game that made none of the shows, but it was over well before the game so I was basically getting paid to sit at work and watch the game. Which was nice I guess.

[Drew Corleone]

Have you met The Coach?

[AtlLonghorn]

Have you met The Coach?

Which coach? Johnathan Coachman or someone who is a real coach?

[Drew Corleone]

Yeah, Coachman... I did a double take the first time I saw him on ESPN.

[AtlLonghorn]

Yeah, I prompted News for him on Monday night. He wasn't my favorite person to work with, but it was ok. It was funny to me though, he was talking about how his friend texted him asking for tickets to Raw in Des Moines that night. He's been gone two years and he said he only has one connection left in the company...the Brooklyn Brawler.

[AtlLonghorn]

I thought this story was pretty good so I figured I'd share it here....

Yesterday I had to prompt the NBA countdown show and halftime show for the Lakers-Magic game. During halftime one of the producers comes over the headset and says to Stu Scott, "Obviously you can't say this on air, but Kobe was late the arena today because he has a stomach bug and had diarrhea." (which was the god's honest truth.)

So Stu is throwing it back out to the game and the video they show is of Kobe hitting a shot, so Stu says, "Lakers down by 6 at the half, Kobe probably told his teammates that they're going to have to go on some runs if they're going to get back in this one."

[HornMafia]