Zags Win Super Bowl Week
They say when astronauts come down to Earth after spending time in space, they’re never quite the same.
Spending a week amid the frenzy of the Super Bowl isn’t quite the out-of-body experience of a moon walk. But for four senior Zags who traveled to work in the media at Super Bowl LX, the experience of interviewing superstar athletes, navigating a massive sporting event and delivering an incredible array of stories on little sleep but lots of adrenalin was an experience they’ll remember for a lifetime.
Seniors Natalie Keller (journalism major, broadcast minor), Madylin Campbell (public relations major, broadcast minor), Kyle Sweeney (broadcast major) and Michael Hanrahan (broadcast major, philosophy minor) traveled with John Collett, Gonzaga director of digital media production and assistant professor in the integrated media department, to the Bay Area and spent the better part of a week working alongside hundreds of other media members.
The students attended press conferences for the competing Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots, as well as for halftime performer Bad Bunny. They did human interest stories on NFL-led community service projects and the crazy scene surrounding the Super Bowl that, although it was being played in Santa Clara, enveloped the entire Bay Area in excitement and led the intrepid Zag reporters on trips throughout the region to chase down stories.
“Going down on the Sunday [a week before the Super Bowl], all I was thinking was, ‘What’s going to happen? Where might things go wrong? What are we not prepared for?’” said Hanrahan. “Then you start working, and Monday through Thursday we were just running through stuff, and it all worked out pretty well.
“I felt like, ‘We belong here. We’re putting out good stuff. We’re doing good work and we have a place on this stage.’”
Campbell shared Hanrahan’s nerves from the beginning of the trip, wondering if she’d done enough research or thought of the right questions to ask. But when she and the team went to the opening night press event on Monday of Super Bowl week, her doubts went away pretty quickly.
“I was going in very fragile, and then Natalie and I were walking around that Monday night, and hearing some of the questions being asked, I was like, ‘No, I’m supposed to be here,’” Campbell said.
The real-world experience of creating broadcast news stories in a completely new environment far from the GUTV studio and Spokane is something that will resonate with all these Zags long after they graduate in May.
“This trip embodies the educational experience of Gonzaga University and why I love teaching here,” Collett said. “Students left the comforts of the classroom, took on the challenge of covering a massive media event, and grew immensely from each day in the environment. This trip surpassed all my expectations when planning it. I’m optimistic we’ll be doing it again in the future.”
For Sweeney, the access the student journalists enjoyed alongside their seasoned peers “was crazy.” He arrived at Gonzaga intent on a career in sports broadcasting, and the Super Bowl experience put all he learned in the classroom the past four years to the test.
“The classes are helpful, you need the classes to be able to do [the job],” Sweeney said. “This was the best example of getting out in the real world and doing something that really matters, and using all the skills that come with broadcasting. This was about as invaluable an experience you can hope to have as a student.”
Keller wouldn’t call herself the biggest sports fan, but found herself interviewing some of the best athletes in the world as well as finding stories often untold during Super Bowl week, like covering a tree-planting community service project that included both NFL veterans and local community members.
“I want to go into TV news, I want to start out as a reporter, so this was a really valuable opportunity to practice the skills I will be doing every day in that role,” Keller said. “But doing it in a very different and much bigger setting than what I would actually be doing here in Spokane. I feel like it helped me get good practice of focusing on those skills I’ve learned in classes and internships, and doing it in an unfamiliar place. And I think it gave me more confidence.”
Campbell said the experience helped open her eyes to all the potential roles there are in media, both behind and in front of the camera. And Hanrahan said the experience is exactly what he expects out of a Gonzaga education.
“Gonzaga is big on putting students in those real-world scenarios, and this is probably the best example I’ve had, this Super Bowl trip,” Hanrahan said. “Navigating a complete foreign environment for the first time, it was really valuable to experience something like that. It really forced us to figure out problem-solving, use critical thinking, all the things our university is trying to be about.”
While these Zags were at the Super Bowl, the Spokane media outlets were watching and reporting on these young reporters. You can find stories about the Gonzaga Super Bowl media team on the websites of the Spokesman-Review, KXLY, KHQ and KREM.
