When the BU men’s basketball team tips off against Northeastern on November 5 in their home opener, another team of Terriers will be positioned courtside to capture all of the action. Six camera operators will follow the game from posts around Case Gymnasium. Another camera, operated by remote, will record from high above the court. And a production team, crammed into a small room behind the bleachers, will direct a broadcast from pregame show straight through to post-game interviews.

In a small production room in Case Gym, a director, technical director and graphics operator work on a men’s basketball broadcast. Photo by Dana J. Quigley

Since 2009, BUTV10, the University’s student-run television station, and BU Athletics have offered students the chance to produce live sports broadcasts. What began as a small operation with a handful of students has grown to include dozens of aspiring sports broadcasters. The all-student production team is unique in the Patriot League and among Boston schools. In June, BUTV10 won a Boston/New England National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Student Award for Excellence for its live coverage of men’s basketball.

Chris Cavalieri (’81), an assistant professor and faculty advisor to BUTV10, and Leo Paré (’13), director of marketing and digital media for BU Athletics, have supervised the program since the beginning. “When we first started trying to design what this [program] would even look like, we wanted students to be responsible. We wanted them to have control of the production,” Cavalieri says. “We thought that was the best learning model.” When BU joined the Patriot League in 2013, the University was given equipment to produce high-definition streaming broadcasts—with the agreement that the school would contribute to the new Patriot League Network. The program has since grown to include 60 students broadcasting every BU home game for soccer, basketball, field hockey, ice hockey and lacrosse, as well as occasional track and swim meets and rowing events on the Charles River. The team has even begun broadcasting some ice hockey games in Mandarin.

Anna Gregoire (’20) began her sports broadcasting career by holding cables for a camera operator working the sideline during a basketball game. After working her way up as a stage manager for the on-air talent, a technical director and a camera operator, Gregoire is preparing to direct men’s and women’s basketball broadcasts this winter. “It’s fast-paced chaos,” she says of her new role, which requires split-second decision making as the team cuts from one camera to another. There’s no chance for a second take.

Although Gregoire wasn’t a sports fan before college—“sports production is a lot more interesting than just watching a sport for me”—she’s come to love basketball and is looking ahead to a career in sports broadcasting.

“When I’ve interviewed for something, or talk to people in the industry, they say, ‘Okay, cool—you’re into it, you’ve done it, you’re not just entry level,’” she says. “It’s what allowed me to make these connections that got me to where I am right now, and hopefully will get me where I will be going for the rest of my career.” Gregoire spent much of the past year as an intern at regional sports network NESN where she edited promos and other short video segments. Other veterans of the BUTV10–BU Athletics program have worked in professional baseball, basketball, football and hockey after graduation.

Although Cavalieri and Paré had to do a lot of hands-on teaching to get the program going, now, the more experienced students mentor the newcomers, preparing them to be camera operators, audio engineers, graphics designers, directors and on-camera reporters and announcers. When things go smoothly, Cavalieri and Paré can just step back and watch the students work.

“The most rewarding aspect of this project is to watch students in the heat of the production executing at a very high level,” says Paré. “There are times when the games are going on, the production is well underway, it’s intense, and the students are reacting, not even thinking, and executing it beautifully; we will be in the back of the control room and we’ll just nod to one another.”