Ford Field Trip Gives Students Taste of Football Finals Broadcasting

Highlights

By Jon Ross
MHSAA Director of Broadcast Properties

December 7, 2021

DETROIT – An hour before kickoff of the first game of 11-Player Football Finals weekend – the Division 8 championship decider between Hudson and Beal City – Bally Sports Detroit announcers Evan Stockton and Rob Rubick were busy preparing to call the action from the television booth on the third level of Ford Field.

Four levels above them, in the press box, a group of prospective broadcasters were touring the facilities. The high school students had spent the Fall sports season streaming games to the NFHS Network and now were learning about a career in broadcasting from Eric Vandefifer, a Montrose High grad currently serving as the radio voice of Saginaw Valley State University basketball and as a contributor to a variety of high school broadcast channels including the MHSAA Network.

Seven years ago, Vandefifer was in a similar situation. He was part of a field trip to Ford Field for the Finals that helped him realize sports broadcasting was a career he wanted to pursue. Those field trips were headed by Tom Skinner and Thom Lengyel, who became mentors to Vandefifer. As a high school junior in 2017, Vandefifer was named Best Student Broadcaster nationally by the NFHS Network.

Mount Pleasant SBP “With Tom Skinner now deceased and Thom Lengyel retired from the broadcast business, I just felt like I had to continue this and their legacy,” Vandefifer said. “It was important to me to keep it going because when I was in school, it was something I looked forward to.”

Nearly 50 students from Lowell, Montrose, Lake Orion, Mount Pleasant and Ann Arbor Greenhills high schools made the Nov. 26-27 trip to Ford Field. They were able to film highlights, interview players, practice announcing the games, meet other members of the press and more. For Vandefifer, giving back to students who are in the position he once was is very rewarding.

“We had the ability to feel like real media members for a day. I wanted to be able to give other students that same opportunity,” Vandefifer said. “Seeing kids who have a love for sportscasting and that drive to get better gives me real hope for the next generation in this business.”

And after the field trips were done each day, Vandefifer put his headphones on, got behind the microphone and called the two afternoon games for the MHSAA Championship Network.

PHOTOS (Top) Eighth grader Sam Belill, left, and freshman Owen Leitelt from Montrose practice calling a game from the Ford Field press box. (Middle) Mount Pleasant make a stop at the press conference room. (Photos provided by the Montrose and Mount Pleasant School Broadcast Programs.)

Highlights

Tournament Streams Ahead in 4 Sports

October 29, 2019

By John Johnson
MHSAA Director of Broadcast Properties

It will be a very busy week of live video and audio streaming of MHSAA Tournament activity on the MHSAA.tv, MHSAANetwork.com and FOXSportsDetroit.com websites.

The centerpiece of the next seven days comes Saturday (Nov. 2), when the Boys Soccer Finals will have live audio and video streaming of its championship games from Novi and Comstock Park High Schools. Two games will be played at each site with the game times set for noon and 3 p.m. The finalists will be determined following Semifinal play Wednesday (Oct. 30), with four of those games being streamed live on MHSAA.tv.

Saturday’s coverage also will include the Lower Peninsula Cross Country Finals at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn. The Finish Line Cam will capture the opening 800 meters of the race on the infield of the track and the conclusion of the race beginning between the third and fourth turns on the oval. The Finish Line Cam also will feature commentary throughout each race from reporters on the course. Weather permitting, coverage also may include the awards presentations and a camera showing the runners just past the two-mile mark of the race before reentering the oval at MIS.

Lots of Football Playoff games will take place beginning Friday evening with three featured games on the FOX Sports Detroit Prep Zone. The Prep Zone games can be seen on FoxSportsDetroit.com and on FOX Sports Go! for handheld and streaming devices like Roku. Here are this weekend’s games, all at 7 p.m. Friday:

White Lake Lakeland at Plymouth (Div. 2)
Rochester Adams at Utica Eisenhower (Div. 2)
DeWitt at East Lansing (Div. 3)

MHSAA.tv will play host to 30 Pre-District Football Playoff games over the weekend, most produced by participants in the School Broadcast Program. The NFHS Network is providing bonus coverage of two additional games Friday – Brighton at Holt in Division 1 and Pinckney at Coldwater in Division 3.

On Monday (Nov. 4), a record number of District matches in the MHSAA Volleyball Tournament will have opening night streaming video. Over the course of the first week of the playoffs, action will be streamed from 25 tournament centers.

The unprecedented coverage in Football, Soccer and Volleyball this fall is due to the addition of Pixellot, the NFHS Network’s automated production solution at a growing number of MHSAA member schools. The number of active Pixellot schools now stands at 84, with nearly 30 additional schools awaiting installation at their stadiums, gymnasiums, or both venues. As a result, the number of events produced by School Broadcast Program participants has passed the 2,000 mark already this school year.

Here’s the complete schedule of upcoming events on MHSAA.tv:

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