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Schools’ 'Super Bowl' up for Emmy
By ALEXANDRA CALDWELL
| Article published on Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2009 |
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![[Image]](/content_images/110409_sch-01.jpg) |
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| Photo courtesy of PINELLAS COUNTY SCHOOLS |
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| Seminole High’s Sarah Myers interviews Arizona Cardinals long snapper Nathan Hodel about his education for the Emmy-nominated Super Bowl for Students Countdown. |
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Elana Halpern had to listen to the voicemail twice before she began to believe it.
The 17-year-old Osceola High School senior ran up to her teacher to tell her the good news: The Super Bowl television show she and four other student-hosts worked on last winter has been nominated for an Emmy in the children/youth/teen category by the Suncoast Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
“The second time (I played the message) I actually realized what happened and I was like oh my gosh, that is amazing,” Halpern said. “I felt so excited. I was just shocked completely that something I had a part in was being nominated for an Emmy.”
Halpern of St. Petersburg; Camille York of Pinellas Park and a Northeast High grad; Amanda Borges, a Tarpon Springs High grad; Aneta Kozub, a Countryside High grad; and Sarah Myers, a Seminole High grad, hosted “PCS Journal’s Super Bowl for Students Countdown” on Pinellas County School’s WPDS-TV14. The students covered the 10 days of the Super Bowl when it came to Tampa last season, taking an educational approach to the game. York, Myers and Borges were executive interns at the station, while Halpern and Kozub were student volunteers.
David Cook, TV operations manager for WPDS-TV14, used to work in the sports department on Channel 8 and has covered plenty of major sporting events, from Super Bowls to the Olympics, and he wanted to get the students involved this year. He contacted the NFL the summer before the big game and began a continuous dialogue with them to work out the details.
“You get so jaded in the sports world of professional sports,” Cook said. “They get the ‘Ah, this is no big deal’ attitude, but to see it through the eyes of an aspiring journalist made it so much more rewarding. I’ve won four Emmys, but if we were to win this one, it would be far more gratifying than those because of the people who I’ve shared this with.”
Kozub, who was a senior at Countryside High, covered the opening ceremonies of Super Bowl week and the NFL experience where kids were invited for fun and games. There were also youth football and cheerleading clinics and Kozub interviewed some Pinellas students and teachers who participated in these events.
Halpern covered the Taste of the NFL for the show, where the 32 NFL teams were represented by top chefs – including Tom Colccico of “Top Chef” – and a player from that team to cook for the $500-a-head benefit dinner to help fight hunger. About 40 restaurants also participated, each providing about 1,200 portions of food to give away to local food banks. Halpern interviewed nearly all of the chefs and also some of the Pinellas County culinary students who helped prepare the food.
Halpern said although she did not want to show it, she was very nervous before the day started, but once she got to the kitchen she relaxed because everyone was friendly and easy to talk to, she said. By the time of the big dinner, she felt relaxed and excited because she knew some of the chefs by that time.
Myers, who was a senior at Seminole High at the time, got official Super Bowl media credentials for the week except for the actual game. The Monday before the game she got a tour of media headquar-
ters in downtown Tampa, which was the home base for more than 4,500 reporters from more than 28 countries.
Myers covered Media Day on Tuesday at the stadium, where she interviewed athletes and other notable figures about the role education has played in their lives. She interviewed Sean Morey of the Arizona Cardinals, who graduated with honors from Brown University; Chris Berman of ESPN; Warren Sapp of the NFL Network; Mewelde Moore of the Steelers who double majored in accounting and finance; Nick Eason of the Steelers who became the first football player in his college’s history to graduate in three years and still have two years of eligibility left; and Nathan Hodel of the Cardinals who has a master’s degree in sports marketing.
“I think education is the most important thing you can do,” Hodel told Myers in an interview. “Sports is secondary to making sure you develop your mind.”
WPDS producer Mike Roy of Clearwater said it was refreshing to listen to the students’ questions.
“I think one of the things that really impressed me about this is all the (professional) reporters are there and trying to get the dirt, and then our kids get up and say, ‘Tell me about the role of education in your life,’ and the players were like, ‘Wow, someone actually asked an intelligent question,’” Roy said. “Nothing about dirt or steroids or any of those things. These little voices just shot up, and it made me so proud.”
Later in the week, Myers covered Bruce Springsteen’s first press conference in 20 years and was one of only a half dozen out of 600 reporters who got to ask Springsteen a question. She asked him how he has been able to span generations, from baby boomers like Myers’s parents to teens like her.
“Just by sticking around long enough,” Springsteen replied. “If you don’t die, people get a chance to see you.”
Springsteen was the lead performer during the half-time show, and York and Borges covered that event. That was a highlight for many of the student reporters who also attended the event.
Roy was in charge of organizing the students for that event, and despite numerous rehearsals in the rain as well as rain during the performance, the show was a success. However, one of the most memorable moments for him was looking over and seeing Halpern sitting on a friend’s shoulders in the 2,000-person crowd.
York, who was a senior at Northeast High, reported on the NFL Experience Play-60 for Kids, where she interviewed people such as Ike Hilliard of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Jerome Bettis of NBC Sports, Gov. Charlie Crist, Pinellas County School Board Chairwoman Peggy O’Shea, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, and Warrick Dunn of the Bucs.
“I remember one special moment in particular when Jerome Bettis was finishing his taping for NBC, he only had time for two questions, and I was able to jump in there among many other reporters and ask the first of only two questions he answered,” York said. “It was an absolutely amazing feeling, as well as a great soundbite.”
York is now a freshman at the University of Florida where she is working on a telecommunications major and plans to volunteer at the university’s news and radio stations beginning spring semester. Her dream is to become a leading news anchor on a national news station such as CNN, she said.
“Broadcasting is not only my pride and joy but my passion,” York said. “I started hosting the morning shows in middle school and have been dedicating my time to the media industry ever since.”
It is unbelievable to have a show she worked on to be up for an Emmy, York said. Her college roommate was shocked when York told her about it, she said.
“I’m not only honored but extremely thankful,” York said. “More than anything, I am humbled because I know that it was a tremendous group effort and it wasn’t my work alone that allowed us to be up for this award.”
Roy said he is proud that the district had the ability to offer students such a special opportunity. When he started working at the TV station in 2006, there were only three student interns, and now there are more than 50 student interns and volunteers at the station, he said. He also said he was proud of the students’ professionalism during the whole event.
“All our work that we’d been doing of the students paid off,” Roy said. “And all the telling them how to pay attention and open up or stand this way or hold the mike this way, it all showed right then and there. Be confident. They were nervous, but then they reached back and used the things we talked about.”
Cook added that no matter what they taught the students in school and at the station, the Super Bowl show gave those five students a whole new experience.
“You can’t replicate the real experience and the bile you get in your stomach when you’re getting ready to ask a question to Bruce Springsteen with 600 other national reporters,” Cook said. “You can’t replicate the experience of going to the Taste of the NFL with all these $500 a ticket people and these chefs who are world renowned. And the same thing with Media Day when you’re surrounded by hundreds of other media and you have to ask your question. You have to jump in there. That experience, you can’t replicate that anywhere else.”
Halpern said she enjoyed watching your younger sister watch the completed show with widened eyes.
“She was absolutely amazed, and she said to me when it was done, ‘I want to do that,’” Halpern said. “I smiled at her and said ‘If you try, then you will.’”
Halpern still volunteers at the station and is applying for colleges that could provide internships and opportunities to help her achieve her goal of becoming an anchorwoman one day. She said she hopes the Super Bowl show urges other students to get involved at the station as well as teach everyone who watches it a lesson.
“I think that anyone who was watching it really would see that even people in the professional world, even like top chefs and accomplished football players, they are still able to look back at their life and say how education plays a role,” Halpern said. “And I think it will show kids that they really need to continue their education and go to college and stick it out, and I think it’s a great motivator.”
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Article published on Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2009
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