Tech Focus: Pro-Audio Training, Part 3 - Full Sail University's Gus Ramsey on the Dan Patrick School of Sportscasting The program director examines how to prepare the next generation of sportscasters By Dan Daley, Audio Editor
Thursday, March 5, 2020 - 2:37 pm
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
Along with extensive facilities for broadcast- and live-production education, Full Sail University is home to the Dan Patrick School of Sportscasting, which offers a degree program in sportscasting. Although Patrick - a legendary sportscaster, radio personality, and host of The Dan Patrick Show on Premiere Radio Networks and Bleacher Report - is often on campus interacting with the course's 100 or so students (and another 200 or so online), Program Director Gus Ramsey describes himself as the team manager, guiding the program day to day. Ramsey - who was a producer and coordinating producer at ESPN for 20 years and has worked with and coached some of the best-known talent on such shows as SportsCenter, Baseball Tonight, and NBA Tonight - sat down with SVG last month to discuss what goes into making the next generation of sportscasters.
Full Sail University's Gus Ramsey: What's changing is the opportunity in all the different places where you can do it, but live sports is never going away.
What does a sportscasting degree entail in terms of curriculum?
Our entire focus is how to be a sportscaster, covering it both in front of the camera and behind the scenes. We're in our own separate program within Full Sail University. We've got 32 classes: 15 of them are sportscasting-specific, and 17 of them are shared [with other Full Sail programs, such as Sports Marketing]. There are four classes that everybody has to take, no matter what other Full Sail program they're in, and the rest of the classes cover sportscasting territory.
One of the classes is broadcast writing, where the focus is solely on learning how to write for sports broadcasting. We also have a class that focuses entirely on how to execute live shots, in which we put [the students] under the deadline of doing a live shot: they have to leave the classroom, go to an area where they are conducting a group interview - kind of like what we're seeing with the Astros this morning - and then scurry back to class and line up in front of their cameras, where they're counted down to a live shot.
We have two classes where they go into the studio and produce, write, edit, and host shows anywhere from seven to 15 minutes in length. In one of those days, they spend the morning doing a 3 -minute sportscast and then have to reconfigure that sportscast, add an additional minute of content, and then perform that, which gives them a sense of what it's like to do a 6:00 sportscast and an 11:00 sportscast.
Yesterday was Day One of Daytona Speed Week Media Day, and 20 of our students went out there and got to take part in all the media activities, including going on an interview with the drivers. They get a real taste of what it's like to have to go out and cover a big event like that.
What need does the program fulfill in a rapidly expanding media industry?
Based on my experience at ESPN, we're seeing a lot of young production assistants come into the company not fully aware of everything that they need to know to enter the sportscasting workforce. Dan Patrick and I recognized the need to better prepare people to hit the ground running. For example, at ESPN, a production assistant comes in and is given six or seven months to learn.
[At Dan Patrick School of Sportscasting,] we spend a lot of time teaching our students those same things, so that, when they walk in the door [at a network], they're already aware of all that stuff they need to know. We had two grads who started there in January of this year as production assistants, and they're already doing great. We constantly put our kids under deadlines so they know what that pressure feels like. To me, the biggest thing is just preparation. We're getting people ready to go do this from the start.
What's the hardest part?
Our students are constantly being evaluated on their performance, and it can be hard, for someone in their early 20s, to put yourself out there in front of other people and expect to be criticized on it. It's like doing American Idol every single day. We want them to understand that this isn't criticism; this is constructive feedback. We are going to point out the things that you're not doing well, but we're also going to explain to you how to do them better.
Dan was just here in January, playing a scenario in which he was the new Astros manager and students took turns asking him three questions. Then he gave them feedback on the questions they asked. He's very involved.
The Dan Patrick School of Sportscasting at Full Sail University prepares its students for both on- and behind-camera work.
As for me, this is my passion. I like being the general manager of the team, kind of overseeing everything. When I got laid off at ESPN, I started my own talent-coaching business. Dan heard about it, and that in part was one of the reasons he asked me to come down and run the program. To me, this program is just kind of taking what I was already doing and putting it on a much larger scale. I'm in the classroom all the time. Between our 15 instructors, we've got 300 years of industry experience. We just believe that what we're teaching is the best way.
Patrick got his start on radio. How important is audio in the curriculum?
It starts for me with [students'] vocal capabilities. We have three classes that are specific on vocal training, and those are overseen by a voice coach. From that standpoint, we spend a lot of time on just how to maximize [students'] speaking abili
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
07/08/2025
July 8 2025, 22:30 (PDT) Tata Motors & Dolby Bring Dolby Atmos to Harrier.ev, R...
14/07/2025
The Royal Moroccan Air Force hosted a C-130 award ceremony with L3Harris Technologies President of Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Jason Lambert a...
14/07/2025
UK launch set for September, following on from recent US and Germany releases
London - UK, July 14, 2025 - Nielsen, a global leader in audience measurement, da...
14/07/2025
SHENZHEN, China Telycam has added control options for its portfolio of pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) cameras with a new plug-in for Elgato's Stream Deck family of con...
14/07/2025
The awards are open to IBC2025 show exhibitors and offer a valuable platform for companies to raise awareness for the new products and solutions they will be la...
14/07/2025
Clear-Com is excited to announce a significant expansion of the award-winning Arcadia Central Station with new software updates. Together, these releases dram...
14/07/2025
Grass Valley and Daktronics today announced a strategic technology partnership that unites Grass Valley's live production expertise with Daktronics' lea...
14/07/2025
Cloud playout solutions provider, Veset, and swXtch.io, provider of cloud-based multicast and reliable networking solutions, are partnering to deliver multicast...
14/07/2025
Tintri , a DDN subsidiary and leader in AI-powered data management solutions, today announces a game-changing and award-winning refresh to its global Partner P...
14/07/2025
HighField AI, the broadcast industry's first agentic and multimodal AI platform for automating graphics production, is now commercially available. Developed...
14/07/2025
Encompass Digital Media has today announced that it has been delivering a complex global services project for DAZN, the world s leading sports entertainment pla...
14/07/2025
MASV (massive.io), the fastest, most reliable large file transfer platform trusted by over 10,000 global organizations, announced today it will showcase its nex...
14/07/2025
Calrec is introducing a series of usability, customisation and system enhancements across the entire range of Argo consoles at IBC 2025, on Stand 8.C47. Look ou...
14/07/2025
Fincons Group, IT business consultancy and systems integrator company with more than 40 years of experience in the market, is proud to announce a new engagement...
14/07/2025
Stand 5.F45, IBC2025, Amsterdam, 12 15 September 2025 Intinor returns to IBC to present the latest updates to its Direkt series. A key development on show is ...
14/07/2025
Sony's New Coach's Headset Was Designed in Collaboration With the NFL Featuring a custom dynamic boom mic, the headset will debut in the fall By Dan Da...
14/07/2025
Live From MLB All-Star 2025: MLB Network's Marc Caiafa and Tom Guidice on th...
14/07/2025
Back to All News
Netflix ISP Speed Index for June 2025
Product
14 July 2025
Global
Link copied to clipboard
One percent of Internet Service Providers (ISP...
14/07/2025
Back to All News
Netflix Begins Filming The Map of Longing With Al cia Falc , P...
14/07/2025
This July marks 100 days since I officially stepped into the role of CEO at Grass Valley, a milestone not of abrupt change, but of confident continuity.
Unlike...
14/07/2025
Enhancing Public Service Broadcasting with
Innovation, Accuracy & Sustainability
New regional detail and local towns featured...
13/07/2025
Back to All News
Netflix Expands B&B Universe' with Yu Jae Seok's B&B ...
13/07/2025
Live From MLB All-Star 2025: MLB Network Marks Five Straight Years of Onsite MLB...
12/07/2025
Ryan Coogler accepting the 2013 Vanguard Award. Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez.
Editor's Note: In honor of Fruitvale Station s 12th anniversary, we're d...
12/07/2025
Key Code Education, the professional training division of Key Code Media, proudly announces a major update to its Adobe Premiere Pro Engineering and Advanced Op...
12/07/2025
Key Code Education, a leader in instructor-led post production training for over...
12/07/2025
As the death toll continues to mount, with at least 120 killed and more than 170 people still missing on July 10 from devastating Texas floods, a number of broa...
12/07/2025
EL SEGUNDO, Calif., and MIAMI -DirecTV and TelevisaUnivision have signed a deal that will make the ad-supported premium subscription tier of ViX, ViX Premium wi...
11/07/2025
PARK CITY, UTAH, July 11, 2025 - The nonprofit Sundance Institute announced today the 11 producers chosen for its annual Producers Labs, returning to Ucross Fou...
11/07/2025
If you've ever wondered what might be playing in Clark Kent's headphones...
11/07/2025
L3Harris Technologies President of Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Jason Lambert and General Manager of L3Harris Waco facility Sean Ling held a ce...
11/07/2025
ARLINGTON, Va. WETA, the flagship public media station in the national capital area, has launched WETA+, a new streaming service tailored for the local Washingt...
11/07/2025
The Federal Communications Commission has emerged as one of the central players in the broadcast TV landscape in 2025, with its deregulatory policies sparking h...
11/07/2025
Calrec will introduce usability, customization and system enhancements across its entire range of Argo consoles during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Amsterda...
11/07/2025
LONDON Encompass Digital Media said it will support live and on-demand viewing of the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup across multiple global regions for sports enterta...
11/07/2025
Two-thirds of broadcast engineers reaped the benefits of a pay raise within the last year....
11/07/2025
CARY, N.C. SmallHD has launched the Quantum 27, a new 26.5-inch Quantum-Dot OLED monitor designed to deliver postproduction image quality in a compact, set-frie...
11/07/2025
The Federal Communications Commission's Enforcement Bureau and Tegna have entered into a consent decree that will settle an investigation into the accidenta...
11/07/2025
WASHINGTON Following news in early July that Paramount had settled President Donald Trump's lawsuit, Sens. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Ben Ray Luj n (D-N...
11/07/2025
Model/Actriz Performs Lead Single Cinderella on The Late Show with Stephen Colbe...
11/07/2025
Behind the Mic: Amazon Prime Preps for First Season of NBA Action; MSG Networks ...
11/07/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Suite Studios' Craig Hering on Adapting to Client...
11/07/2025
2025 SVG Content Management Forum Breaks Down AI's Impact, Continued Transit...
11/07/2025
A Journey HOME: University of Nebraska's HuskerVision Goes IP Leaders from the HuskerVision and Lawo share their IP learnings By SVG Staff
Friday, July 1...
11/07/2025
CMSI, Remote Picture Labs, Ace ESPN's Cloud-Based Editing Efforts for Wimble...
11/07/2025
Netflix Enters the Live-Boxing-Production Ring for Round 2 With Historic Taylor-...
11/07/2025
Back to All News
Too Hot to Handle: Italy Is Coming on July 18 Only on Netflix
Entertainment
11 July 2025
GlobalItaly
Link copied to clipboard
July 11, 20...
Tech Focus: Pro-Audio Training, Part 3 - Full Sail University's Gus Ramsey on the Dan Patrick School of Sportscasting The program director examines how to prepare the next generation of sportscasters By Dan Daley, Audio Editor 
