“Up for the layup, oh, blocked by James!”
“Curry, way downtown, BANG! BANG!”
“Agueroooo!”
Regulars in the sports world are all familiar with some of these forever immortalized broadcasting calls of our time, and reasonably so. Sports commentary can be used to make a story out of a game. And yet, sports commentators are not often talked about. Instead, more often than not, their work falls under the radar.
At the 5Cs, a Division III sports hub, student sports commentators are entrusted with the formidable yet rewarding job of commentating on games that are often intricate and complicated to understand, with the added pressure of being on the mic.
Although this is no easy task, the Claremont student broadcasters agree that announcing games for friends and family is a rewarding and memorable adventure.
For Matt Eichner PO ’26, a former member of the Pomona-Pitzer (P-P) baseball team, announcing P-P baseball has been a meaningful way to continue interacting with the game after an injury forced him to stop playing.
“I get to be around the guys, kind of be around the game, since I’m not playing,” Eichner said.
Beyond staying connected to the P-P baseball world, Eichner explained how the reactions from parents and players is his favorite part of broadcast commentary.
“We dress up, we kind of make it a production, and we always get parents from out of town come up to us and thank us,” Eichner said. “They love hearing us.”
Notable for Eichner, too, is the commentary’s reach outside of the current P-P team sphere.
“We get alumni watching the games, and they’ll text us stuff if they know something about the batter,” Eichner said. “We get to hear from guys that graduated a couple years ago who are watching the stream, that’s always cool.”
Kaitlyn Helfrich CM ’25 and Annie McKinley CM ’25, both members of the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (CMS) women’s soccer team, normally commentate on CMS women’s lacrosse. For this duo, connecting with students’ parents and adding a voice to 5C sports has been a rewarding aspect of the job.
“We meet a lot of the parents, which is really fun, connecting with them,” McKinley said.
Helfrich shared a similar sentiment.
“I think it’s beneficial to the parents and the students, and it’s beneficial to make sports a vocal thing,” she said. “It’s a very connective device.”
For McKinley and Helfrich, recognizing student commentating as an instrument for connection has been key in how they go about approaching games. Especially alongside each other, they acknowledge both their impact and the entertainment they provide.
“It’s so easy when you have someone else with you, because you just bounce off of each other,” McKinley said. “Even if the game gets boring, we treat it like a podcast sometimes.”
McKinley, the color commentator offering supplemental insight to Helfrich’s play-by-play, also expressed the lightheartedness she tries to apply to the job.
“I feel like it should be taken lightly,” Helfrich said. “I feel like it can be kind of scary to think, ‘Oh, I’m going to put on the headset and people are going to listen to me’… But if you’re passionate about it … try it.”
Though McKinley, Helfrich and Eichner find lighthearted enjoyment in their jobs, they still devote significant amounts of energy to studying up on players and matchups. For a sport like baseball, where there are many quiet moments during the game, it becomes crucial for the commentator to feel prepared and well-versed in the statistics.
“We have lineup cards, so we write out the lineups, do some research on the stats for both teams,” Eichner said.
For Helfrich, there is a connection between her approach to athletics and her commentating.
“I’m a pretty aggressive player, I would say, and I feel like that translates into being confident and feeling in control of what I’m saying,” she said.
While applying her knowledge to her commentating, Helfrich also described the importance of showcasing the dedication of the athletes that she is covering.
“I do it to be able to amplify the voices, just the hard work that everyone puts in, because I feel like DIII athletes go unnoticed,” Helfrich said. “They put in so much time … and it’s good to have someone narrating the story.”
Eichner, McKinley and Helfrich’s commentating has clearly been an impactful addition to the 5C sports realm. It’s the stories they tell, though, that do more than simply provide entertainment.
“I want to be a facilitator, someone that brings sports to people, in some way,” Helfrich said.