根据他的看法来判断游戏

去年5月, 戴维斯在芝加哥, handling the play-by-play duties for Fox Sports One at Wrigley Field, a national television audience hanging on his every word.

戴维斯于2014年加入福克斯体育, 在他第一个学年结束的时候, he’ll have called 70 games across three sports: Major League Baseball, 大学橄榄球, 大学篮球.

虽然他的职业生涯开始于他的波特维尔(密歇根州).起居室, it was when he was recruited to play football for 贝洛伊特 that broadcasting became a reality. While most athletes who come to 贝洛伊特 are wooed by the thought of being able to keep playing the games they love throughout college, Davis said it was the offer to broadcast basketball games that “sealed the deal” on his decision to enroll.

After his first football season as a Buccaneer was officially in the books, 戴维斯也拿起麦克风. He asked friend and teammate Zach Poelker’10 to join his broadcast team as an analyst. This allowed Davis to focus in on the action as it happened.

Poelker was a natural choice, says Terry Owens, 贝洛伊特’s director of sports information. “A quarterback always has an offensive lineman with him,他说.

Davis and Poelker began broadcasting before Internet streams of Midwest Conference games were even available. 对于他们早期的游戏, Davis and Poelker recorded the sound by running a microphone cable up to a video camera further up in the stands. 起初, 戴维斯回忆, “I think we played it back on 贝洛伊特 Access Television,” the college and city’s public access television station.

By his second semester, big changes were coming to the Midwest Conference. The Conference signed a deal to live-stream all of its games online. With a burgeoning audience, the broadcasts began to evolve. 戴维斯和波尔克在场边都穿着西装.

“All of a sudden, Joe had a whole crew and three cameras,” Owens says. “这是他所能做到的最专业的.”

There was also a steady stream of opportunities outside 贝洛伊特 opening up. 戴维斯只需要找到他们. 他会在凌晨醒着坐着, clicking through the rabbit hole of the still relatively new information superhighway searching for contacts and freelance opportunities.

“我会尽我所能去寻找. At that point there was no opportunity that was too small-time,他说. “It’s all about being creative so you can get that hands-on experience.”

Davis made contact with Pat Coleman, the head of a digital sports start-up called DIIISports.com. “Being in 贝洛伊特, you’re right in the heartland of Division III sports in the Midwest. I’d find games I could drive to and pitch them to Pat Coleman at DIIISports.Com，”他说.

Even icy back road drives back to 贝洛伊特 from Platteville, 白水事件, and other Wisconsin towns in Division III weren’t enough to get all of what he was looking for in terms of experience.

It occurred to him that minor league baseball was the place where he could get the most practice. “棒球,他说, “you’re behind a microphone for four hours every single night during the summer.” An unpaid summer internship with the now-defunct Schaumburg (Ill.) Flyers gave Davis a taste of calling the national pastime. His demo tape caught the ear of the Tampa Bay Rays Double AA affiliate, the Montgomery (Ala.)饼干. 戴维斯提前一个学期结束了他的大学生涯, 这位刚毕业的大学生搬到了蒙哥马利.

有了饼干，他学会了做所有的事情. “Press releases, game notes, I even did stadium signage,他说.

在蒙哥马利待了三年之后, 戴维斯跳槽到ESPN工作了两年, but not before racking up two honors: youngest Double-AA baseball play-by-play announcer and 2012’s Southern League Broadcaster of the Year.

Now with Fox Sports, Davis says preparation for a single game takes up most of the week. “What you hear on the broadcast is not a significant chunk of our work week,他说. 一周后, we have to learn enough about the team to be able to teach diehard fans something new about their team. We need to know not just as much as those diehard fans, but even 更多的.”

有些准备工作相当学术性. In a week leading up to a baseball or 大学橄榄球 game, Davis reads at his kitchen table or pores over newspapers and scouting reports at his desk in his home office. For 大学橄榄球, it’s rote memorization of players’ names and numbers. 在棒球赛季, Davis said he spends about 80 percent of his time reading, proving that Yogi Berra was half right when he quipped that the national pastime is “90 percent mental and the other half is physical.”

这些天, 详细介绍大学篮球比赛, where Davis cut his teeth with Buccaneers’ broadcasts, 只是为了生存, 他谈到了紧张的旅行日程.

旅途中的生活并没有使戴维斯气馁. If anything, it keeps him focused on what he’s always wanted to do. 每天在路上, 每一个航班, 每个酒店房间, 每次到达棒球场, 体育场, 或场边, 这是我实现梦想的又一步吗.”