Every Student Provides News: ESPN

By Christopher Nesmith

M&M staffer


It is nearly impossible to put a figure on how many sports fans there are in the world. The number is simply insurmountable. Imagine reaching every sports fan, one-by-one, regardless of what sport they are a fan of.

ESPN has accomplished that.

The Entertainment Sports Programming Network, or ESPN, is an American media network that produces sports-related programming 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Recently, a class from the Duke Talent Identification Program at the University of Georgia, called Media and Message, was privileged enough to speak with a representative from ESPN, TJ Adeshola.

Adeshola spoke with the class via telephone conference about being successful journalists and media experts in today’s society. Adeshola works in an advertising and marketing group with ESPN.

“I wanted to understand corporate parts of the company,” Adeshola said when asked why he chose his field of advertising marketing, “The more I know about the company the more value I have.”

“It pays to know people,” Adeshola said. He is a prime example of this quote. Before working at ESPN, Adeshola found himself working various internships at places like Hot 107.9, a hip-hop radio station in Atlanta, Ga. He also managed clubs and did freelance journalism.

It wasn’t until he contacted a friend that interned for the Michael Irvin Show on ESPN radio in Dallas that his career began to take a turn for the better. His friend forwarded his information to ESPN Radio and gave him all the contact information he needed. Luckily for Adeshola, one of the contacts was at UGA covering the football game against Auburn.

“He loved me of course, just as everybody else does,” Adeshola joked with the class. The ESPN representative offered Adeshola a paid internship with ESPN in Bristol, Conn. That internship led to his current job at ESPN.

For someone that has aspirations to work for ESPN, Adeshola had a lot of positive advice.

“You gotta be a jack of all trades,” he said, “Everybody wants to be in the media.”

He told one student that dreams of working for ESPN, “You gotta be the best of the best,” and, “Be a go-getter.”

That student has played basketball and other sports all of his life. He absolutely loves sports and can sit and talk about sports all day. Thus the student feels that if he didn’t get lucky and play in the NBA, a job coaching or better yet a job at ESPN would be the best thing for his life. Adeshola told the student that it was important to brand oneself and be good at everything.

Adeshola ended the conference by answering a few “take your pick” questions. Among the questions were Celtics or Lakers, Duke or UNC, and Kobe or LeBron. Despite Adeshola having the exact opposite picks as that one aspiring student (Adeshola picked Celtics, UNC, and LeBron), every word that Adeshola spoke stuck in that one young student’s head and it only drove him to work harder to achieve his ultimate goal – to be a sports analyst for "The Worldwide Leader in Sports."

ESPN.


Christopher Nesmith is a 4th year TIPster from Lithonia, Ga. You can watch him below give a pre-game interview before competing in a basketball game at TIP in the embedded video below or watch him hit a big three to propel his blue team to victory.