"The Half-Way Point!!"

Well, I've reached the end of my 5th week here at ESPN!! I just found out that I'm meeting/exceeding all the expectations that they had set forth for me on my 30-day evaluation!! I'm so glad that I'm impressing not only my supervisors and coordinators, but I'm really starting to feel like I'm one of the editors here at ESPN! All my fellow editors have been impressed with my work and my passion for editing sports! I have actually gotten the chance to be in an edit room without a trainer, and I have proven that I've learned how to edit without having someone check my work. I know without doubt that I'll pass my final evaluation in 4 weeks and come home with so many memories and ideas to share to family, friends, instructors and professors, and my fellow classmates at Arkansas State! I'm still editing a wide variety of sports, but the most important game I've edited (to this point) was Game 2 of the Phillies/Dodgers playoff series for ESPNews! That was a big step in not only my editing career, but also my sports broadcasting career being able to edit a game as big as that one was in the pressure situation!

I've had the opportunity to shadow a couple of times at ESPN Radio within the past week! On Monday, I spent two hours in the control room of "The Herd" with Colin Cowherd! I had a great time meeting Colin and his awesome producer and director, learning from them as the show went on and just enjoyed the experience of sitting in at a big time sports radio show! On Thursday morning, I was at "Mike and Mike in the Morning" for the last hour of the show. I had been in contact with Liam (the producer) about coming and seeing how things work for that show. During a commercial break, Liam introduced me to Mike and Mike!!! I was so excited to be able to spend a couple of minutes with them as I introduced myself and shared where I went to school. They were impressed that a guy from a school that far away from Bristol got noticed by ESPN and they actually knew that ASU almost beat Iowa a few weeks ago.

All of the employees at ESPN were able to attend an autograph and picture session with ESPN analysts Lou Holtz and Mark May as we celebrated with them their induction into the College Football Hall of Fame! Mark May's message to the Arkansas State football team was to just play like they did against Iowa (who is a top ten team) and they could win the Sun Belt! He also said that he was impressed with the type of great program that Head Coach Steve Roberts was running at Arkansas State!! That's a HUGE compliment coming from one of College Football's greats!! Coach Holtz is one of the nicest men I've ever met and I got the chance to not only get his autograph, but to have my picture taken with him!! I will share as soon as I get it!!

Well, as you all can see, it's been a crazy and exciting two weeks here at ESPN!! I'm almost done here; it's a bittersweet feeling because I love it here, but I know that my family, my girlfriend Lauren, my friends, and the Arkansas State Radio/TV program are ready to have me back (I'm kind of ready to get back to home too!!!). So, hopefully you'll hear from me real soon! Thanks again to everyone for all the encouragement while I've been up here!!!

And that's a wrap for "Live from ESPN!!!!" (For now at least)!