My longtime friend David Siroty is a master storyteller, communications pro and problem solver. He is also Founder of The Sports Broadcasting Camp, which has helped guide thousands of kids to careers. The Pandemic created yet another issue…but Dave and his partners Tim Capstraw Dave Popkin found a way to take the camp on line last week. Here is the story…
The pandemic hit, schools went online and my 15-year-old begged me not to cancel our Sports Broadcasting Camp. We also got countless calls from past campers urging us to keep going. But how would we take an ultra-successful model complete with amazing teaching, learning, doing, speakers and access to a state-of-the-art broadcasting studio and turn into an enjoyable virtual experience for kids?
The first thing we did was recognize how we would do it. The second thing was recognizing what kids 12-and-up had gone through with school and their summer and recognizing how important camp would be to them. We doubled down on recognizing this was for the kids and redesigned the program to do everything we could to bring joy to our campers while recognizing how difficult these times were for their parents and guardians too.
We ended with nearly 70 kids and a magical experience we never could have imagined. Here are some things we did and learned along the way:
- Could we do it? That was the first question. For 19 years we have run an experience that no one could mimic. We utilize the state-of-the-art Montclair State School of Communications where we have use of their TV and radio studios, control room, and classrooms. We knew we wouldn’t couldn’t replicate that.
But as my partners Tim Capstraw, Dave Popkin and I talked with our lead instructor Craig D’Amico, we realized something important. To the kids, their computer WAS a camera and their screen WAS a teleprompter. We realized that if we could get the kids to engage with us, and one another, we might not lose that much.
We also had the unique benefit of Craig being a school teacher along with broadcaster. He had used Google Classroom and Google Meet for months and saw first-hand how the kids adapted to online learning.
- How long could we go? By the time we started camp on July 27, we had all been on countless Zoom calls. We knew how laborious they could be. We had to then imagine how to do it with young people to keep them engaged, entertained, learning and doing. We decided on a 9:30 a.m.-2 p.m. day. They would have a couple of breaks and a lunch where they could eat “with” their new friends or take a break.
With our in-person camp, we always saw how eager the kids were. Many would arrive to camp an hour early! We therefore set up a 30-minute log in period where the kids came on and talked sports by themselves with Capper, Pop, Craig and our team including fellow broadcasters Bill Herenda and Sam Kuperman watching and then joining. We knew we hit on something big when on Day 3 the kids were debating the merits of 70s rock to the early 80s to today. “Older music was so much better than modern. Back then they used real electricity!”
- One of the other scheduling moves we made was creating an “overtime” session. We figured that by the end of the day, some kids would be done. 4 ½ hours would be enough. But for others, we created an extra session. We used this to take a deeper dive into productions, beat reporting, script writing and play-by-play. It was bonus coverage that was well attended.
- How we would be able to let the kids interact with each other was another major consideration. Our in-person camp has created life-long friendships. We also knew a huge part of camp was the interaction the young people had with us and our speakers. The kids valued that connection and it added to their confidence building.
The key move was creating our groups. This allowed us to ensure that we had similar numbers to what the kids were used to in school. We had camp-wide sessions for our guest speakers and major topics and then quickly broke into groups. Not only did this allow us to differentiate instruction by age and ability, but allowed for more personal relationships as we developed the camaraderie of the team. It also allowed the kids to get more “doing” time.
Our speakers did an amazing job of understanding how different an experience this was. They were patient with the kids, took questions and bought the right amount of humor and thought.
- Patience was a virtue. We went into this experience knowing it wouldn’t be perfect. In fact, we welcomed that. We weren’t afraid to let the kids know if we were struggling with technology. We also set up a day-long text chat just for the staff.
The camp was a huge success and went better than we ever could have expected. All of the up-front work paid off, we set proper expectations with the parents and saw the campers learn and gain confidence as the week went on as they always do. And, maybe even more importantly, they met new kids, formed friendships and didn’t miss a beat.
We now have a new model that works and are already planning on how to use the virtual model, along with in-person, going forward.
