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I've been sitting in a hotel room with ample amounts of free time since for the last three days, so I figured it was about time to maybe write up a short post detailing what I have been up to.

Since Monday night, I have been living the life of a sports broadcaster working the Horizon League baseball tournament and covering both play-by-play and color commentary for the Valparaiso Crusaders. As some of you know, I work as General Manager at the student run radio station at VU and when you work with our station's sports staff, you get the opportunity to travel with teams and broadcast on trips like this one.

If you have ever played sports competitively, you may be somewhat accustomed to the type of trip I am on. Our trip started with a seven hour bus ride on Monday and due to some late inning heroics by our team, we will be here until at least tomorrow. It's been a great adventure and through the experience I have been able to make a list of five things that everyone should know about that happens behind the scenes for a sports broadcaster.

1. You'll be given a lot of free time. - While on the road on a team bus or during time spent in the hotel, you will find yourself with little to do at certain times during the trip. Hopefully you are able to entertain yourself, otherwise you will find yourself in a state of complete boredom. The team will often be working in meetings or resting for the next day's game, but as the broadcaster you will instead be watching TV, walking around the area near your hotel, or preparing for your next broadcast.

2. You need to be able to study, a lot. - When given the free time, use it to study up on the sport and teams you will be broadcasting. It isn't necessarily algebra, but you will be putting a lot of time into it nonetheless. If you don't understand a baseball box score, you'll be forced to learn real quick. To be a good broadcaster, you need to know a lot of information in order to only use some of it during an actual broadcast.

3. Take advantage of free food, but watch your calorie intake. - Right now, we're broadcasting the Horizon League tournament, which is a pretty big college conference. As such, free food is abundant for people up in the press booth. Feel free to help yourself to the pizza or buffalo wings, but if you don't watch out you might find yourself picking up a few pounds. Junk food + sitting around watching baseball is not great for the body.

4. It's hard not to get emotionally involved. - As a broadcaster, it's your job to accurate relate the game in words for people over the radio or television so that they can visualize what is going on even though they aren't present. You try not to be biased and you do your best to put equal emphasis into both teams. However, when you see a team come back from behind you can't help but cheer a little bit in your head. You won't know most of the people you broadcast personally, but you definitely feel like you have known them your whole life after you follow their every move for three hours.

5. It really isn't that hard to get involved. - Whenever you tell someone that you broadcast college sports, they seem to think that the barrier for entry is nearly impossible to crack. To be honest, it really isn't that tough at all. If you are in college, many schools have a student-run radio station. All you need to do is go check out these stations and sign up for a sports staff they have and you can easily work your way up to the broadcast level. Most student radio stations are always looking for people because they are understaffed and would love to have someone interested in helping out. It isn't hard and it sure is a lot of fun.

Hope you all enjoyed this look into student broadcasting. If you have any questions about broadcasting, feel free to leave a comment or e-mail me at Cameron@CameronBanga.com. Also, feel free to take a listen to my broadcast tomorrow (May 24th) for Valparaiso's baseball game at 11am EST on www.sportsjuice.com.