New course looks for balance between production, broadcast to meet student interests

“It’s been a long time coming, but….” the sports broadcasting class has enough people to run, much to the delight of Scotti Thurwatcher, an English and drama teacher, and head forensics coach at West.

This new elective offers the opportunity to gain film experience, along with speaking, writing, and announcing skills. Thurwatcher was eager for the challenge.

“I think there was a little push for the sports broadcasting class because of the potential along with doing things with the sports teams,” he said. 

This class is slightly out of his usual wheelhouse and realm as he is most known for drama and forensics.

“I just thought it would be fun to do something different, and give some students the opportunity to do some broadcasting, and eventually live stream some things,” he said. 

In order to run the class, the school had to combine two different courses - film production and sports broadcast. Thurwatcher has been facing the challenge of trying to make everyone in the class feel represented and happy. 

“It’s tough because they combined it with the film and tv production class, so when I originally thought of this, it was based on the broadcasting side, which I have experience in and I was looking forward to that broadcasting part,” he said. 

He’s striving for a balance between everyone’s passions.

“I’ve been trying to figure out how to merge the two and obviously people in film production didn’t sign up for a sports class, so trying to combine the two has been difficult,” Thurwatcher said. 

Some of the assignments in the class include trying the speaking aspects of sports broadcasting.

“The broadcasters have been announcing and doing some play by play things,” Thurwatcher said. “All this is working toward eventually doing a weekly sports recap show, almost like a Sportscenter, and it will be like a recap of everything that happened in West with sports that week, so that’s the goal with the broadcasters.” 

Because it’s a sports broadcasting class, some of the students have had to expand their knowledge on the subject for some of the assignments in the class.

“We have to learn a lot about each sport before we can go on to anything else, and we get to interact with all the teams; I’m finding it very interesting,” senior Sequoia Eckstein said.

There are lots of facets that go into the sports broadcasting class, giving room for students to explore their options in a classroom environment rather than a high stakes scenario.

“I think it’s exciting because it gives another avenue to dive into film, broadcasting, or production, and it allows an opportunity for people to branch out and find something that they might be interested in, it just gives the students some more open doors for their future,” Thurwatcher said. 

The class allows the students to showcase events for their school, which is more personal to everyone in the class.

“It’s a class that allows creativity to flow as well as support for all the different aspects of Oshkosh West,” senior Marcus Miller said.

This class has out of school requirements necessary in order to fulfill their assignments. 

“The students have been doing a good job getting pictures and videos of football games, they did a celebration of fall sports video, where they went out and got shots of all the different fall sports, some put together some football hype videos,” Thurwatcher said. “Now they are working on a short film that will merge into their sports documentary, which is anything related to Oshkosh West sports.” 

These out of class demands make the class more pressing than some other creative electives the school offers.

“It’s not a class you should take if you want an easy class, it’s a class you should take if you want to commit to the potential that sports production has,” Miller said.

Some students have joined the class to help them in their endeavors beyond high school.

“I’m looking to own a business, and I thought that taking the sports broadcasting class would give me experience in the sports world a bit more,” Eckstein said.

The broadcasting students have been given the opportunity to create a video for the big screens at the Herd stadium, expanding beyond the confines of West’s building.

“Brad Jodarski came to me and asked if we were willing to put together a package for the video board for a game at the Herd stadium,” Thurwatcher said. “It’s just a big hype video for the game and the class is really excited about it.”

Thurwatcher believes the sports broadcasting class allows for opportunities to explore future career opportunities.

“It provides an opportunity to step outside the box and try something new, as well as a creative outlet they haven't had a chance to try,” he said.

by Addi Isely and Tenna Ruetten

Published October 30 2023

Oshkosh West Index Vol 120 Issue II