The National Sports Media Association annually honors many of the best in our business. More than that, as I experienced throughout my time in Winston-Salem, it reveals and celebrates what’s best about our business. Thanks to some charitable local peers, I was there to receive a state award. I left rewarded in ways that humble and inspire me.
Seeing ‘old’ friends and colleagues who’ve marked every step of my professional journey, from Chapel Hill to Boston. Getting to know others whose work I’ve enjoyed and respected from afar. Sharing time and insights with those in the earliest stages of their careers, trying to pay forward all the advice and encouragement I’ve accrued along my own way.
Meeting and, more so, listening to the men and women who led the way for others onto sets and into studios, press boxes and locker rooms; and/or raised the standards for everyone else lucky enough to call those domains our workplaces.
Like Jackie MacMullan, who delivered on her late father’s faith to become a Hall of Fame writer and example; Jayne Kennedy, who kept pushing for an audition with CBS, earned the full-throated endorsement of Brent Musberger and became the first Black woman to host a network sports telecast; and Ernie Johnson, simply the best at what he does in broadcasting and even better at what he is as a human being.
Thanks to Dave Goren, the NSMA board and their many volunteers for making this wonderful weekend possible.
BOB SOCCI 