Once a Marist student walking across the stage on the Marist green, McCrory now finds herself with her childhood hero Eli Manning’s number in her phone.
McCrory graduated from Marist in May of 2017 as a sports communication and broadcast journalism student. During the beginning of her journey in Poughkeepsie, McCrory had the goal to become the next Erin Andrews, but that goal changed as she discovered radio production.
“I like to pull the strings, I am a bit of a control freak, which I think you need to be to be a producer,” said McCrory. “To be able to structure things the way that I want them to be. I just didn’t like it on air, I didn’t like to get perceived that way.”
McCrory found audio production through “The Classroom,” a weekly sports radio talk show produced live by students and aired on ESPN radio affiliates. The director of sports communication at the time, Dr. Keith Strudler, co-hosted the show alongside students of the Center for Sports Communication. The show also featured Geoff Brault, who graduated from Marist in 2008 and has been a play-by-play voice for Red Fox athletics since 2006.
“I just prefer producing; my bread and butter is editing audio and video,” said McCrory. “I just am obsessed with it, it doesn’t even feel like work, so ever since then I’ve never really felt the need to be on camera.”
McCrory has seen a plethora of job opportunities since her days of entering stats as an intern for Marist Athletics. From working with companies such as Fox News, the New York Post, The Athletic and the AP, as well as big-name clients like Tom Brady, Michael Strahan and Dan Le Batard, McCrory finds herself constantly on the go, building her portfolio weekly.
“I always thought I was going to have to move to Ohio. I was going to have to take a reporting job, a producing job somewhere remote,” said McCrory. “People told me you’d never make it in New York. And a month after graduation, I was working for Fox News in New York City as a production assistant.”
Marist prepared McCrory for life after college through in-classroom work and hands-on opportunities.
“I felt very prepared because I was just doing this for class, and now all of a sudden I was doing it for one of the biggest news organizations in the world,” said McCrory.
Today, McCrory finds herself as the social media producer and publisher for San Francisco 49ers star tight end George Kittle and his wife, Claire’s, new podcast “The Kittle Things.”
“I am a social media producer; three years ago, I wouldn’t have even thought that was a thing. Now it’s all kind of under the same umbrella and the medium’s ever changing,” said McCrory.
This new era of new age media and sports communications is constantly evolving, and with these changes, the job landscape is hard to predict. McCrory has faced the challenges of the unstable job market in sports and freelance positions.
“No one is really hiring a podcast producer full-time because these shows, you don’t know what is going to happen,” said McCrory. “We can sign George Kittle for 10 episodes, and it is a flop and then that show doesn’t exist in six months.”
McCrory’s favorite project she worked on was three years ago with Religion of Sport and the creation of “In the Moment with David Greene.” The podcast dived into moments in sports history and had the athletes and teams involved replay those moments in their heads.
In the Moment did not get the legs she thought her proudest work deserved, which led to the entire audio department getting led off.
“I’m a perfectionist, and I have always been told I am very eager. So, for me, getting laid off, I could not understand if it was me, but you have to know if you are getting laid off and your whole team is getting laid off, it’s not you,” said McCrory.
Today, working with DAZN and “The Kittle Things,” McCrory doesn’t know where her next step is, but that is part of the excitement of the industry. By using her technical skills and tools she has developed since Marist, McCrory has created opportunities for herself in a competitive industry.
Edited by Center Field Staff
Photo from Sarah McCrory
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