By Wendell Epps

They say being a doctor is amazing because you get to save lives. They say being an engineer is great because it makes you a lot of money. They say being a sports broadcaster is awesome if you want free access to never celebrating another holiday again and living off cold Domino’s pizzas from a media room for the rest of your life.

Fortunately, holidays have never been a big deal to me. I just need ten minutes to eat a turkey, five minutes to open presents and about another two to buy a costume I will regret getting about five seconds after. I also love Domino’s, so if those assumptions are indeed true, I’ll be alright.

According to CareerExplorer, the average salary for a sports broadcaster is just a little over $39,000 per year which may not seem much to a lot of people, but it sounds like paradise to me. If you gave me $39,000 right now, I could finally buy a PlayStation 5, purchase season tickets to Wizards and Hornets games and at least throw in a bid to own some part of the Washington Commanders???

You know what having more money brings? Less stress. The day will come where $39,000 will feel like just $39 to me. I’m aware that soon I will have to face adulthood and do things like make a budget and put a good amount of it toward providing for something called a child. But, hey, right now, it’s just me, myself and I.

I just announced my 90th HPU sporting event recently and guess how much money I’ve made from those games? A nice, grand total of 0 dollars!

Receiving money would have been nice, but I got paid in other facets from working all those games, which I am so grateful. I got to have a game winning goal call posted on the biggest women’s lacrosse page online and I got to have former longtime NBA player, JJ Redick, on my podcast after he saw how many games I had worked at HPU.

Those 90 games I’ve worked have become very worthy, so have the 150 podcast episodes I’ve done and the 100+ hours I’ve spent doing game notes to prep for my broadcasts. Every single hour I’ve spent getting reps in the sports media industry has allowed me to keep climbing higher and higher in attempt to reach the top of that mountain.

At the top of the mountain is potentially a five-year $65 million contract waiting for me. Joe Buck just got that contract from ESPN to be their new play-by-play voice of Monday Night Football and, who knows, I could be getting that same kind of sweet deal someday.

Some may say that they want a career like being a teacher because they can easily predict what their schedule will entail. Summers off and hearing screaming children five days a week for about nine months, but the unpredictability of working in sports is fun to me. It’s like I’m riding a never ending roller coaster right now. My career could go anywhere at any minute.

Speaking of roller coasters, you know what the best part about being a sports broadcaster is? The freedom. You can say or do almost anything like you would on a roller coaster and nobody will think you’re an idiot.

Take Eric Collins for example. He’s the play-by-play broadcaster for the NBA’s Charlotte Hornets and he’s always yelling “Hum Diddly Dee” in his broadcasts. What does “Hum Diddly Dee” mean? I have no idea! Yet, there are still T-shirts with the phrase being sold online for $25 and people are actually buying them. See what I mean?

Of course I wouldn’t be living the dream of an aspiring sports announcer without already having to make sacrifices. There have been plenty of times where I’ve had to miss class to call the big game or give up a night out with friends to do some last minute prep for a broadcast, but at the end of the day, it’s all worth it because I’m doing something I love.

The reality of the sports industry is that it requires you to face adversity. As someone who is an African-American male attempting to hold a play-by-play announcing position that has a history of being heavily occupied by white men, I would know what it’s like.

However, through adversity you learn. Balance, confidence and patience are all essential qualities to have as a broadcaster to get through that adversity.

Now, there’s about a 50% chance that I will be able to find a full-time sports job after I graduate next year. It will either happen or not happen. There’s a 75% chance that I will be working in a city I probably have never heard of before. There’s also a 90% chance that I will be living off PB&Js and cheap fast food meals for the first year, or so, of my career.

I never took the initiative to teach myself how to cook though, so that one is on me.

However, there is something I know that has a 100% probability and that’s the fact that I will be having fun for the rest of my life.

Perhaps my first paycheck will be just enough to barely fill up my car to a half tank of gas and buy myself a cookbook, but who cares.

No matter where I am or who I’m surrounded with, as long as I have sports on my side, I know I’m going to have a chance of winning this long game of life.

So, the next time you get a job offer, try not to get caught up on the annual salary. But rather determine the fulfillment, happiness and satisfaction that this opportunity will bring you.

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Wendell Epps is a junior at High Point University majoring in Sports Media. For contact inquiries, please email wepps@highpoint.edu.