Although Homecoming Weekend is long gone for most Bobcats, the return trip has just begun for 2002 graduate Brad Shaffer.
Shaffer, who earned a bachelor’s degree in video production from Ohio University, is returning to campus as the technical director of an ESPN crew responsible for bringing Bobcat football against Temple to a national audience tonight.
“Anytime anybody goes back to their alma mater, I hope they have the same feelings that I have, where it’s like a warm ‘you’re home’ kind of feeling,” Shaffer said.
The homey nostalgia could be partially attributed to the fact that Shaffer high-tailed it to Athens for the game from China, where he had been covering mixed martial arts. The sport and destination were both new for the Bobcat alum.
“I never thought in a million years when I graduated OU that I would be leaving the country and someone would be paying me thousands of dollars for a plane ticket to work, to do what I love doing,” Shaffer said.
Shaffer sits front-row in one of ESPN’s production trucks, mixing and mashing clips and directing traffic — skills he learned while he climbed the ranks at WOUB and AVW Productions during his college days.
“He, and some other students during that time frame, were very engaging and were go-getters,” said Michael Rodriguez, who was Shaffer’s professional adviser and is WOUB’s director of production services and student development. “I think what he learned here was to do multiple things. He was able to put out fires, so to speak, on various levels and know the production flow of things and things in the workplace that he would be encountering in the real world.”
Shaffer’s involvement outside of the classroom was instrumental in jump-starting his profession. While still in school, he worked at Nationwide Arena in Columbus and gained experience as a part of the JumboTron crew. From there, his connections with local television outlets grew, and within a matter of years he was working for a national audience.
Following his graduation, Shaffer used the connections he made with Fox Sports Ohio while working at Nationwide Arena and freelanced with the outlet. He then made the decision that he “wanted to see more of the world,” which prompted him to move to Los Angeles for four years, where he worked for a Chinese news station.
Since then, Shaffer has freelanced for ESPN both regionally and in national programming.
He worked mostly on college sports crews, covering football, basketball, baseball and softball.
Even though he has played a role on major production crews throughout his post-college career, Shaffer still has finds it hard to believe that he has made it in the television business.
“Now I laugh, because when I was in school, some of my professors would maintain relationships with alumni at that point, and they would bring them in and tell us what they were up to and I just sat in class saying, ‘I don’t know how I could ever get to that point.’ ” Shaffer said. “And then life just kind of takes its course.”
jr992810@ohiou.edu
