A buzzer-beater? A running forehand down the line on match point? A one-handed catch for a touchdown? For fans, a great call is essential to reliving the moment, and for their rivals, it lives rent-free in their heads. For the longest time, Pomona-Pitzer (P-P) relied solely on student broadcasters — until this fall.
Meet 22-year-old MJ Newsom, P-P’s new in-house, play-by-play sports broadcaster. He’s here to explain his role and why sports broadcasting is so much more than a free front-row seat with a side of yapping.
TSL: What do you actually do?
Newsom: When you tune into the game on FloSports, I’m the one talking. I’m the one describing everything and giving you the story lines, the stats, the player names and bringing the game to life for the viewers and listeners.
That can come in different ways: whether it’s on TV, and you can actually see it, or on the radio, where I’m having to be more descriptive and paint a picture in the listener’s head.
TSL: How do you do research for upcoming games?
Newsom: When I do preparation for games, I make spotting boards, which are charts that have the player’s name, their position, number, height, weight, where they’re from, their year in school and their stats.
For football, I was working on Grady Russo, the starting quarterback. I have his last game stats versus Willamette at the top, and then I have a bunch of notes beneath that for things that I can bring up during the broadcast.
I find those things, outside of interviewing a coach, by researching on the internet. One thing that is really powerful in today’s age is using AI to streamline and make your research a lot quicker.
TSL: When and how did you become interested in being a sports broadcaster?
Newsom: I was probably 8 years old when I decided that maybe this is what I want to do. I think it always started as a fantasy, sometimes my dad and I would hit mute, and we would do the game ourselves for fun in the living room.
When I was a sophomore in high school, I remember seeing a flyer on the wall for a sports broadcasting club, and I was like, “This is interesting.” So I joined this club of three people. It’s funny: I was with the club only for a year because it didn’t have enough members, but it gave me that gateway to get into sports commentary.
TSL: What did you do in college that furthered your interest and expertise in sports broadcasting? Did you meet anyone you could call a mentor?
Newsom: I was the co-sports director of our student radio station, KXSC, during my senior year. Throughout college, I also called games on campus. Even senior year, we did radio stuff for football, basketball, baseball and then also called some games on Big Ten Plus.
My biggest mentor’s name is Roger Hoover. He’s the women’s basketball and baseball broadcaster at the University of Alabama. I’ve known Roger for pretty much my whole college career. I’ll send him a six-to-ten-minute segment of me calling a football game, a basketball game, a baseball game, whatever it might be [and] he would go through and critique it.
TSL: What’s the time commitment like being a broadcaster for all sports?
Newsom: Let’s say that today is Monday, 5 p.m. I’ve got a basketball game that I’m calling on Wednesday. It will probably take me five to six hours to prepare for one team if I do it the right way. I’m looking at 12 hours of work just to finish my spotting boards for that game, and then another three when it comes to memorizing names and numbers and watching a little bit of film to make sure I know what the players look like.
What do they wear? Do they have an arm sleeve? Do they have black hair? What color shoes do they wear? Those are things that can really help when you can’t see anything.
TSL: What’s your favorite part of your job?
Newsom: I’ll give you two answers.
One: the ability to bring a moment to life. It’s really impactful. Every time there’s a big play, a call is associated with it. If you’re watching the 2016 NBA Finals, LeBron James has the block against Andre Iguodala. Everyone associates that play with “Oh! Blocked by James!” when Mike Breen called it. Whatever kind of moments they are, I am helping bring those to life, to the listener, to the viewer, to build up more emotion.
The second part of the answer is the relationships you get to build, whether it’s with coaches, athletes, other broadcasters or other people in sports. No matter what your role is within sports, everyone’s there because they love it.
A lot of us might be better off money-wise if we’re going to work 9-to-5 at J.P. Morgan. But that’s not what we want to do with our lives. We want to be in sports, and just being around those people makes the job more enjoyable, because everyone shows up to work just excited.
“A lot of us might be better off money-wise if we’re going to work 9-to-5 at J.P. Morgan. But that’s not what we want to do with our lives.”
TSL: Why did you come to Pomona-Pitzer?
Newsom: I knew in my sophomore year of college, at the radio station, that I wasn’t really at the top of the totem pole. I was towards the bottom, and it was going to take a little while for me to get my start because I had people in front of me. I wanted to get reps and get better, so I reached out to a ton of small schools in the LA area, and Pomona was actually the only school to get back to me.
I called some football, some basketball, off and on. This past summer, I reached back out… [Associate Athletic Director of Communications and Operations Sam Porter] and I met, we talked multiple times, probably for over a span of two or three weeks, and we finally nailed something down for me to come back.
TSL: What are some of your future goals/aspirations?
Newsom: The loftiest and the biggest goal for me is to be broadcasting games on a big network — ESPN, CBS, FOX — those outlets would be awesome. My favorite sports broadcast is basketball, so I think working for an NBA team as a broadcaster is a huge goal, whether it be on TV or radio.
I would love to be the voice of a big-time athletic program, obviously, Pomona-Pitzer, [Division III], but it’s still being the voice of a school, which I love. But being the voice of an Alabama, a Texas or a USC would be really cool.
TSL: Do you have any words of advice for aspiring sports broadcasters?
Newsom: I think the first step if you want to become a sports broadcaster is to give it a shot. If you want to try being a sports broadcaster, you don’t have to have all the fancy equipment. You can just grab your phone, you can pull up Voice Memos and you can go sit in the stands and just do it.
Outside of student radio, seeking out some kind of professional mentor is huge. As I mentioned: those people have been in the business way longer than I have, and they’ve seen more things, called more games and experienced more to help mold and shape me to become a professional like I am now.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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