“My First Special Report: Penn State’s Grady Renfrow Beating Cancer”

Indiana at Penn State

For 5-6 long months in the winter/spring of 2004 Grady Renfrow – a Junior soccer player for Penn State – battled Leukemia in the Georgetown University Hospital in a room overlooking the soccer field. I became very close friends with Grady during that time period when chemo challenged everything he had inside himself. I told our producers about Grady a couple weeks before the match and they thought it would be a great piece to put on the air (with Grady’s permission, of course). I was given the task of getting the okay as well as all background information. On the day of the game all I knew was that they were planning on doing something…

…little did I know that they were going to have me do the story!

So another learning experience, but one I was honored to have. The saying in sports that games are decided in a matter of seconds and inches also holds true for live broadcasting. The story was partly taped a couple hours prior to the game, but was started and ended live at halftime – by me! In a quick rehearsal during the commercial where I had to give the history of Grady in about 45 seconds I finished 1 second late. And I was told (or reminded) that I could not be 1 second late. When the camera went live I was able to get everything in and give a smooth lead into interviews with Penn State head coach Barry Gorman and with Grady. Then back to me live to wrap up and send it back to Sean Wheelock in the booth.

I can tell you that I was more nervous about that then anything else I had done in my short broadcasting career because Grady deserved a professionally done story. I think he got it, and as I said on the air I was real proud to be able to see him play live after seeing him go through his courageous and inspirational battle.

As a side note, Penn State upset Indiana 1-0 on senior night. Had Grady not missed his sophomore year due to the cancer he would have been amongst those seniors, but he will be back for one more year and enjoy his senior night next Fall.