Seconds before Rob Higgins hit the most memorable shot of the season for the Elon men’s basketball team, a moment immortalized by ESPN’s “SportsCenter” as the top play of the day, Claire Geary had a game plan of her own. was standing.
Elon Sports Vision’s coordinating producer wasn’t thinking about basketball strategy, she was thinking about her live broadcast. She then gave camera operator Thomas Ostrom ’24 a simple instruction: “Shoot wide.” Ostrom had to be sure his camera angle included the shot clock as he climbed in the final moments.
“One of the biggest components of a buzzer-beater moment is making sure the viewer knows that the shot clock is at ‘zero,’” Geary said. “As a producer on the show, I had a lot on my mind at that moment, including the possibility of overtime. But at the end of the day, I was just focused on making sure we told everything in the story.”
It’s been a few weeks since Elon’s 82-79 win over Presbyterian College, and many sports fans, and millions of cable subscribers, know how the Nov. 27 contest went. With 3.7 seconds left, Higgins raced around the court and hit a 3-pointer on target from the top of the key. Higgins let his emotions run all over the court, flashing his three fingers as jubilant teammates sprinted behind him, eventually engulfing him.
It had all the production you’d expect from an ESPN highlight.
Unseen were the moments before and after filming in the Schar Center control room, where Geary and her team of 16 students brought the broadcast to life, reconciling beauty in the chaos. I let it happen.
Elon Broadcasting’s director’s chair has been filled by film and television arts major Nate Romano ’25, whom Geary praised for his steady hand and unwavering attitude.
When the game was in the balance, Romano focused on what his audience needed. He agreed with Geary’s request for a wide-angle shot. In such a situation, camera operators were instructed to follow the player who made the winning shot. Just as importantly, Geary and Romano wanted the cameras to be visible to the expressive Presbyterian players.
“Whenever something like that happens, there are always two sides to the story,” Romano said. “One team will be celebrating and elated, and the other team will just be excited.” broken. We want to make sure to convey both of those emotions to our viewers. ”
With Higgins’ heroic performance, Romano’s plans came together.
Caden Strickland, 26, who was operating a camera under the opposing team’s basket, followed Higgins as he headed to the student section to celebrate. The broadcast then switched to cameraman Ella Smith, 26, filming Presbyterian’s Kobe Stewart from a tight angle. She placed her hand on Stewart’s forehead, almost covering his collapsed face.
“In hindsight, there weren’t any bad angles. It was great,” Geary said. “I was able to express the emotion and pain of both stories.”
pull in one direction
How early did Geary start preparing for the late November matchup between Elon and Presbyterian? Well, she had her staff scheduled more than three weeks in advance, she recalled.
Leveraging Elon Sports Vision’s roster of approximately 60 students, Geary is well prepared in advance to build the station’s student staff. Students are welcome to apply for a variety of jobs, and she places jobs according to students’ availability and strengths as well as what they can improve on.
For minimum broadcasting, Elon Sports Vision has 10 students. Of those he’s four on camera, four in the control room, and he’s two broadcasters (or talent). For the Presbyterian competition, 16 students participated in his FloSports live broadcast. This allowed sufficient staffing for less experienced students to support older students.
“I consider myself the captain of the ship,” Geary said. “I have a vice captain, a first mate, a second mate, and a third mate. The guys who are in charge of the ropes. Broadcast voyages require a lot of people.”
Who were the unsung heroes of the November 27 broadcast? Romano awarded that title to Philip Dougherty ’26, a film and television arts major who oversaw the Replay System.
“Filip kept giving me great looks, but he’s always working on his game,” Romano said. “There were a lot of guys who did a great job, but if he hadn’t worked on the replays, I don’t think the broadcast would have been as good as it was.”
From a producer’s perspective, Geary said he couldn’t have asked for anything better.
“We incorporated all three camera angles. We slowed it down. We were able to show what we needed to show again. I’m not going to redo the replay sequence,” she said. “Honestly, that’s my proudest moment as a producer at Elon.”
ask the obvious questions
Higgins finished the match like a mirror, but the broadcast wasn’t over yet.
In the aftermath of the gunfire, the control room erupted into cheers for several seconds. Admittedly, Elon’s student staff was a bit partisan. The cheers from the multi-view recording are proof of that.
But Romano, Geary and others quickly took responsibility after the game.
Geary redirected the broadcast’s sideline reporter, Chase Strother ’25, to get him ready to interview head coach Billy Taylor. She remembers giving two instructions near the end of the game. First, Strother had to hold the microphone in his right hand to avoid awkwardly reaching out to point it at Taylor.
And two, lo and behold, he had to ask about the winner of the game.
“Students often prepare their questions in advance and can get caught up in the moment and forget about them,” says Geary.
Strother fought through the nerves and adrenaline to check all the necessary interview boxes with Taylor. “It’s not every week that you get to interview a coach directly after a play like that,” said the journalism and sports management double major.
As the broadcast continued from instant replays to interviews with Strother-Taylor, Doherty and Annie Tifault ’26 worked hard to build a one-minute package of highlights and drama to close out the broadcast. Ta. Geary was confident that this duo would shine. “Annie and Philip are the best in that respect,” Geary said matter-of-factly.
Once the package was rolled out, commentators Taylor Durham ’96 and Will Roberson provided statistics and final words to complete the final housekeeping of the broadcast. And that was it.
Geary still remembers how the people in the control room gathered together and breathed a sigh of relief. The students then moved on to disassembling cameras and equipment, with Geary providing insight and advice before the customary post-mortem. Fittingly, the 10-minute rally took place on the court.
As now, Romano remains pleased with the team’s effort. But in hindsight, would he change anything? Well, he might have one shot.
“When I looked back at the broadcast, one camera zoomed out on the broadcast a little bit,” he said. “Generally, that’s not what you want. But when you look at it again, it’s pretty cool.”
“Sports Center” moment
Interestingly, there were multiple wins after Higgins’ shot.
The day after the game, the men’s basketball team attracted national attention as the play ranked No. 1 on ESPN’s SportsCenter Top 10, a daily ranking of the most spectacular plays in sports. Jennifer Stroley, the university’s new athletic director, said it was a big win for Elon in terms of national recognition.
Since arriving this summer from the University of Miami, Stroley said she has begun to understand the Elon experience and the opportunities for students to chart their own paths.
“When I looked back and thought about what made this broadcast so special, it wasn’t just that a student took the shot, it was that the moment was also captured by a student through Elon Sports Vision,” she said. Told. “With that big play, we created exposure and opportunity for a lot of people. This really embodies what our partnership with the School of Communication means.”
Beyond professional-level presentation, what Elon Sports Vision truly offers, according to several students, is the opportunity for growth.
Romano said he arrived on campus with a desire to be in front of the camera, not behind it. However, his experience at ESV changed his course.
“Originally, I wanted to be the one who decided the match,” he said. “But I started working with the camera and taking on roles in the control room, and ended up enjoying it much more than the game.”
Romano, who is preparing to study at the Elon Program in Los Angeles this summer, hopes to intern in the sports broadcasting and production field.
Doherty, a native of Athens, Ga., said he doubted he would have as many opportunities to build his skill set on another college campus. “ESV was extremely important to my experience at Elon and taught me a lot of things that you wouldn’t learn at a larger school,” he said.
For Geary, the opportunity for students to try, fail, succeed and repeat is the true value of Elon Sports Vision. Each game is an opportunity to learn, regardless of the scoreboard.
“That’s why we’re able to put students in positions like this and develop them based on each play, each game, each broadcast,” she said. “Elon Sports Vision shows how important student engagement is.”