This academic year, sophomore Cait Haggerty introduced a new multimedia journalism club to the Sacred Heart Greenwich Upper School community.  The Sports Broadcasting Club is available to students who wish to learn more about the profession and familiarize themselves with different sports.  As the club’s founder and head, Cait strives to create an environment that allows members to immerse themselves in the field of sports journalism.

The student-led club encourages aspiring broadcasters to refine their public speaking skills.  Strong oratory ability is essential in sports commentary as announcers must engage the audience with the players and the game.  Commentators guide the viewing and listening experience of sports games by providing crucial details of the athletic plays and insight into the team’s players, according to work.chron.com.  

During the club’s meeting hours, members broadcast a sport of their choice and take turns practicing commentary.  With each meeting, students further their understanding of various athletic events while finding their own voice and commentating style.  Students also participate in post-game interviews as they engage viewers with players from both teams.  

As the Sports Broadcasting Club advances, participants learn cooperatively, providing a judgment-free space for students.  While teaching members new skills, the club creates an easy-going learning environment open to mistakes.  Cait prioritizes creating an outlet for anyone interested in sports broadcasting by forming a supportive group of students.

“I was inspired to start the Sports Broadcasting Club because it had always been something I was interested in but could never really find an outlet for,” Cait said.  “I thought it would be really fun for students to learn together while opening up new opportunities for everyone interested in sportscasting.”

Although Sacred Heart offers multiple journalism programs including Multimedia Journalism and Broadcast Journalism, the Sports Broadcasting Club allows students to examine news through a different lens.  Unlike other journalistic classes, the club strictly focuses on sports literacy. 

“I think the club is beneficial to students because sports broadcasting is different than the other broadcasting opportunities Sacred Heart offers,” Cait said.  “It is much more centralized on the game and its players, instead of school news and creative pieces.” 

On January 18, Mr. Bruce Beck, Lead Sports Anchor for WNBC-TV and News 4 New York, visited Sacred Heart on behalf of the Sports Broadcasting Club.  As a successful newscaster, Mr. Beck shared his experience pursuing this career.  Mr. Beck not only offered his expertise to students but also gave them the opportunity to collectively practice script reading.

“Mr. Beck had the girls read real scripts that he used on television and gave pointers to them,”  Cait said. “He told us to amplify our voices but waver the tone and emotion in which we were speaking.”

When the club first commenced, students would practice commentary on previous games to familiarize themselves with the sport.  As the year progresses, members will advance these skills on and off the field as they begin to individually gather information and broadcast.  Club members eased their way into the winter sports season as they participated in pre-game interviews, post-game interviews, and play-by-play commentary.

As careers in sports media typically advertise to male journalists, the Sports Broadcasting Club aims to deconstruct gender stereotypes.  The club offers students an opportunity to learn more about the profession while breaking gender constraints.  

Because of the male-dominated setting sports broadcasting embodies, the media gives more visibility to men’s sports.  A noticeable gap between female and male sports journalists is recognizable through the low number of women who enter into sports journalism, according to globalsportmatters.com.

In 2011, the International Sports Press Survey concluded that male journalists wrote more than 90 percent of articles, and more than 85 percent of those articles focused on male sporting events.  However, only eight percent of the sports articles featured female journalists as their authors, according to sciencedirect.com.

Empowering students to close gender gaps, the Sports Broadcasting Club makes sports journalism more accessible and welcoming to young women.  The club encourages female leadership by raising the status of women through education, skill, and literacy.

“I really hope that the club carries on after I graduate,” Cait said.  “The world of sports broadcasting is mostly a male-dominated field, but I feel like my club could be a small step closer to changing that.”

Featured Image by Ana Patricio ’24