After a four-decade-long career as a broadcast production engineer, Mark Phillips decided to retire: for about six weeks. Phillips designed and built the ESPN control room in the McCann Center, the hub where all Marist athletic competitions are produced and ultimately streamed on ESPN+.
Before Marist, Phillips attended Dutchess Community College to study electronic engineering. Phillips’ passion for technology blossomed at a young age, as his hometown television repairman took him under his wing.
“On the way to elementary school, I walked past his house and he always had his door open; and I’d always be popping my head in,” said Phillips. “One day, he let me come in and watch him work and he let me pluck a tube or two; that’s basically where it started.”
After college, Phillips became a bench technician for Colony Communications, fixing equipment and getting himself involved in different projects. In fact, with the assistance of current Army football and Marist men’s basketball broadcaster Dean Darling, the company started taping the schools’ athletic competitions.
Later, Colony Communications merged with a company called Continental Communications, prompting a name change to Colony Continental. Over the course of Phillips’s time at Colony Continental, the company continued to merge, resulting in a bit of instability.
Therefore, Phillips moved on and joined AT&T, where he handled Media One assets in New York. After a brief stint with Comcast, Phillips carved out a 14-year career as a chief engineer with Cablevision, as well as working for News 12.
“You could say I was the guy who walked in and shut out the lights and closed the door,” Phillips said regarding Cablevision being sold to Altice. “We stopped doing local news and they were gutting the heck out of the News 12 footprint.”
Amidst Phillips’ six-week “retirement,” Marist Athletics began to discuss the framework of an ESPN deal. Before the deal came into fruition, Marist experienced technical issues producing shows and basketball games from the McCann Arena control room, nicknamed “the sardine can.”
After the deal was approved, Director of Athletics Tim Murray asked Darling if he knew somebody in engineering. While Darling called Army football games, he went over to the cable side of things to sell advertisements, where he had occasional run-ins with Phillips.
The two forged a great relationship and remained in contact, making Phillips the easy choice to spearhead the design of the control room.
“[His name came] right to the top of my head and I hadn’t seen Mark in two to three years,” said Darling. “He’s a very smart individual and to have that undertaking at his age to build an entire control room is amazing.”
After conversations with Murray, the athletic department offered Phillips a part-time gig to be the chief engineer, a position he still holds today. Phillips got to work immediately, figuring out logistics and drawing up schematic floor plans.
In the meantime, Marist continued to produce basketball games out of the arena control room. Phillips believed the university started to “get a feel” for how everything was going to operate, a good sign that Marist understood what they were getting themselves into.
Although it did not take much convincing to get Phillips on board, he was a bit skeptical at first because he knew the quality ESPN expected. A stop along Phillips’ long career included shooting for ESPN. The cameras they used when Phillips worked there cost north of $100,000, a price that was not feasible for a small university like Marist.
Another issue in the process was ordering everything and getting a timeline to escort all of the equipment into the building.
So, through connections made while working at Cablevision, Phillips took the trek down to Long Island to a company he knows and respects. Forest Consoles, located in Hauppauge, built sets for the original Weather Channel and NBC Sports, and has been “designing and manufacturing control room technical and control room console furniture for over 40 years.”
Ross Video was another vendor Phillips leaned on during this process. Over his career, he developed a strong working relationship with the founder of the company, John Ross. From Ross Video, Phillips secured an instant replay system, a switcher and graphics, all of which are a necessity to a sports broadcast nowadays.
“It was not my fault they left me unsupervised,” Phillips laughed. “Nobody bothered me. They just said ‘go do your thing.’’’
Once all of the equipment made its way into the space created for the control room, Phillips spent the entire summer of 2019 wiring everything, as well as completing all of the schematic work.
“I come from the same cloth and I really respect people that work hard to achieve results, especially at that age,” said Darling. “If something is coming to the McCann Center, like the fashion show, he’s working like a dog on that and that is not really his job. He does not ever question it and he is such a valuable commodity to the program.”
The equipment that Phillips ordered and the structure of the control room were done intentionally. The deal the school made with Phillips is that the production of the sporting events was going to be primarily student-run.
Eugene Barbieri, a senior at Marist studying sports communication, became the director for the Red Fox Network, a role he assumed in the middle of the fall semester. This new position required Barbieri to learn from Phillips rather quickly.
“When I started directing, I already knew what I wanted to see as a fan,” said Barbieri. “Mark has been teaching me the technical side of broadcasting and knowing why things work the way they work has changed the way I direct because it gives me a deeper understanding of the broadcast environment.”
The room is structured in a way that creates the best learning environment for students. There are desks located in the back of the control room for underclassmen so they can observe the upperclassmen operating the equipment properly.
“I knew I had to have equipment that students can use,” said Phillips. “That is why I went with Ross. If I really wanted to go top-notch, it would have been a lot more money as well.”
Understanding that the prices for top-notch equipment are astronomical, it often comes with another price: equipment breaking down. Over the course of a broadcast, Phillips is seated at his desk near the back of the control room. The desk is littered with different documents and monitors that Phillips views with the help of a lamp.
Minutes before a women’s basketball game against Holy Cross, the audio board began to flare up, which caused the broadcasters to have trouble hearing one another. His stoic demeanor never wavered, as he dissected the problem as best as possible with ease.
“When shit hits the fan, I am usually standing in front of the fan with a catcher’s mask,” said Phillips.
Jack Darling, Dean’s son, is the producer of all the Marist athletic competitions that are streamed on ESPN+. Darling has worked with Phillips for three years, and his ability to detect the specific thing that is wrong and fix it almost simultaneously is impressive.
“There have been plenty of times where [things break down more than once], but he is always able to identify what it is,” said Jack Darling. “Even if it is not the exact problem, he is able to diagnose the general area.”
One can easily point to Phillips’ experience as the main reason why he has a knack for fixing things. However, his work ethic is unmatched, working ridiculous hours as a part-time employee.
“He could be retired and he is here 50 to 60 hours a week sometimes,” said Jack Darling. “He comes in every day with the same mindset: get to work and attack whatever needs to be done that day.”
“He’s there all the time as a part-time employee and takes stuff home with him,” said Dean Darling. “He doesn’t charge [Marist Athletics] for all of the hours he works and he has a workbench at home.”
Not only has Phillips’ expertise created what he touts as “the most successful broadcast in the MAAC,” but it has also allowed for students to gain professional experience in college. The most rewarding part of the entire process is that Marist students have landed jobs with ESPN, MSG, MLB and the NBA after working in the control room.
Phillips’ motivation to come to work does not hinge on his own personal success, but rather the success of others. In fact, Phillips was involved in Emmy-winning broadcasts at News 12, with trophies to show for it. While the recognition is great to have, Phillips has his sights set on a better cause.
“I tell people, check your ego at the door,” Phillips said. “What motivates me is seeing people who want to learn this.”
Edited by Cara Lacey and Nate Shoemaker
Graphic and photo by Quinn DiFiore
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