Seton Hall Hosts Sports Broadcasting Camps This Summer

Earlier this summer, Seton Hall University hosted a couple of sports broadcasting camps on campus for young, aspiring students ranging from elementary school level all the way through high school.

During the week of July 21, Executive Director for the Center for Sports Media B.J. Schecter held a camp ranging from students entering high school to those entering their senior year high school. The camp was one week-long, Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and featured guest speakers both in person and remotely with knowledge of the sports industry. Some of these guests included Bob Ley ‘76, John Fanta ‘17, Matt Loughlin ‘79, Jackson Shank ‘25, John Paquette, Hersh Lakdawala and a few Seton Hall professors including Leonard DeLuca from the Stillman School of Business.

The campers also got the opportunity to tour Seton Hall’s radio station WSOU89.5 FM, TV studios, E-sports room and the newly renovated basketball training facility.

“It was wonderful to have a group of inquisitive and motivated high school students — and future Pirates — on campus for a week," Schecter said. "We crammed a lot of material into five days and gave the students an inside look at the sports media industry. They also got to work in our creator spaces on campus — both TV studios and WSOU. With 14 industry guests in the five days, it was an experience like no other for these students.” 

The week’s work all built up for Friday’s final project presentation, as the students grouped up to create a piece of content ranging from a podcast to video projects.

The following week of July 28, The Dave Popkin and Tim Capstraw Broadcasting Camp came to Seton Hall’s campus for the first time after being located at Montclair State University for many years before. This camp has been running since 2001 and ran for one week from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., hosting students from ages 10-19. Guests appearances in this camp included Noah Eagle, Kenny Albert, Ed Cohen, Katie Schumacher-Cawley and, once again, John Fanta. Seton Hall women’s basketball head coach Tony Bozzella also made an appearance, alongside players Shailyn Pinkney and Zahara Bishop plus the team’s sports information director Matt Sweeney, to help the campers go through the motions of asking questions during media availability.

The camp ended things off by attending a Somerset Patriots baseball game to show off their skills as they took turns calling the game independently in groups.

These campers also had the opportunity to tour WSOU and the TV studios on campus in the University Center with the help and guidance from Popkin, Capstraw and younger staff members including intern and current Seton Hall rising senior Joe Morales. Morales held the position as sports director last school year at WSOU and was interning at the camp for his third year after being a camper there for four years prior.

“I love going back every summer and helping the campers grow into better sportscasters. It helped me get to where I am in college radio today,” Morales said.

Schecter says he hopes to integrate both of these camps together in future years as they will try to take the program from a local level to a national level by opening the dorms for campers during the duration of the camp.

Categories: Athletics, Campus Life