By Esha Peer ('21) and Melanie Medina ('22)
By Esha Peer and Melanie Medina
For the first time, SBHS chose two student announcers for football games: senior All’My’Love Ross and junior Sydney Halliman. Not only are the two making history for students at South Brunswick, but they are also an inspiration for young girls aspiring to go into fields relating to sports.
With sports comes the need for sports announcing. SBHS has always had a staff member announcing commentary for the Friday night football games, but this year athletics director Ms. Elaine McGrath thought of something different when she saw Ross and Halliman taking pictures on the football team one day.
Ms. McGrath knew they had a lot of football experience, so she asked them if they would be interested in working with a faculty member and sharing the mic in announcing at football games. They said they were interested.
Mrs. McGrath asked the two girls for a small audition, and now the pair shares the microphone with a staff member in the box.
“I was a little nervous myself, because giving the students a microphone in front of an audience of 2500 people. This to me is dipping my toe in the water,” said Mrs. McGrath.
But the girls have been commended by football audiences and staff members for their skill with sports announcing.
Ross and Halliman said they were surprised at the opportunity when Mrs. McGrath first told them about it. “Me and All’My’Love Ross were taking pictures for a couple of my friends in the soccer game, and Ms. Mcgrath, approached us and asked us if we ever thought about announcing,” said Halliman.
The two girls found that watching a football game and announcing at the game are two very different activities.
“We had an incident where Mr. Doug Hunt couldn’t see one of the announcers for the plays or the numbers for Piscataway because it was yellow and white since it was a little hard to see. So I had to make sure that all the numbers were correct on the team that we were going against,” Halliman said.
Ross said how time management is very important in order to do this. She would have to be in the box at a certain time, or else the game would not be able to start.
As they got more comfortable with the mic, the style of these two girls and their talent for sports announcing came through.
Halliman said, “I think it’s really us that stand out because we say the ads or upcoming events and people pay attention to us being funny. Or when we mess up, they still pay attention to what we’re saying.”
Sports broadcasting is a field is dominated by males as based on an article in the Daily Evergreen, only 12% of the NFL’s analysts, reporters, and announcers are women.
“If young people have a desire to do sports announcing, they should volunteer to do that. I think that’s a great opportunity to get exposure to practice,” said vice principal Mrs. Yoshi Donato.
As the football season comes to an end, South Brunswick has not only shown off its great sports players, but some incredible students behind the scenes.
Ross said,“If you're planning on doing something in the school and aren't used to it, then you should go out and try it. It doesn’t matter what it is.”