JVD

The job: Play-by-play announcer, WLTL / LTTV

My age: 14–18

Hourly wage: N/A — another free one

A few months ago I was telling my boys that in high school I did sports broadcasting at Lyons Township. After some deep searching on LT’s YouTube channel we found a bunch of football games where I was the play-by-play announcer. The boys were genuinely impressed and told me I should have stuck with broadcasting. They may not be wrong.

LT was an amazing high school in a lot of ways, not the least of which was that they had an actual radio station, WLTL, and a TV station, LTTV. WLTL had a real antenna perched on a building, broadcasting across the western suburbs of Chicago before the internet made that kind of reach seem ordinary. LTTV ran on local cable access and got real viewership for local events, sporting contests, and the annual pet parade. If you know, you know.

During my freshman year I got involved in both WLTL and TV Club and was quickly given the opportunity to do play-by-play for football games. My voice was a lot higher back then, but my play-by-play skills were on point.

Throughout high school I announced football games and did radio and TV for basketball. Radio play-by-play for basketball is by far the hardest broadcasting you can do. There is no video to lean on. You have to paint the picture entirely with words, in real time, for a game that never slows down. No pauses. No replays. Just you and the microphone.

Broadcasting taught me how much of a team effort it takes to pull off any live production. Radio was relatively simple, dial into the feed, set up a few mics and a mixer, and you were live. TV was a different animal. Multiple cameras, a mobile control truck, hours of setup just to go live from a basketball court. Everyone had to be on point or the whole thing fell apart.

Our TV Club sponsor was John. He was infinitely patient and perpetually irritated with us squirrels. God bless that guy. He showed up every time, and we needed him every time.

After high school I attended UCLA — the University Closest to Lombard Avenue — otherwise known as the College of DuPage. At COD I took journalism classes from a former Chicago Tribune editor who was one of the best teachers I ever had. For the first time I seriously considered broadcasting as a career. When I transferred to Bethel University, they had no journalism program, and that path quietly closed. I still wonder what if. Broadcasting is a hard road — you start in small markets, grind your way up, and most people don’t make it. One of my high school broadcasting partners, Ryan Plzak, majored in broadcast journalism and made it on air at FOX in Chicago. That’s a real accomplishment, and I wasn’t surprised — he was good.

Compared to Marshalls, this job never felt like work. Time flew by — and to this day I still have to think on my feet and react in live training sessions and video calls. There was no script then, and there isn’t one now.

No job was wasted.

---

Watch the broadcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gq8scjD7iC0

WLTL history: https://www.wltl.net/history

---