Hollywood Here We Come

   SportStars will be experiencing a first this month, and many of around headquarters are excited about it. 

   For the first time in our six-plus years, we were asked to appear on television so that our vast knowledge of NorCal high school sports could be broadcast to the masses. Well, something like that. Actually, it wasn’t the first time we were invited, but it was the first time we were able to accept.

   On Tuesday May 17, I ventured into San Francisco to the home of the Comcast Hometown Network program, ‘Game On.’ We’ve had a working partnership with the show — which showcases the accomplishments of female athletes throughout Northern and Central California — for more than a year now. The program is hosted by Anna Kagarakis, whose voice Bay Area sports fans may recognize as an update anchor for sports talk radio station 95.7 FM The Game. 

   Game On producer Mark Baker reached out to us during the summer of 2014 to ask if we’d provide a female high school athlete of the week that the show could highlight in each episode. We jumped on board, and hopefully you’ve seen one of those segments already — either as part of the show, or as clips we’ve placed on our website from time to time. 

   Beginning with this 2015-16 school year, Baker has been dutifully trying to expand our presence on the show by having me on set to provide analysis on some of the top peforming girls athletes and teams. For various reasons, mostly deadline-related, the timing never quite worked out until this past month. 

   SportStars finally got to go Hollywood. 

   This was also a first for me. In the near-decade that I spent covering high school sports at a previous Bay Area publication, I’d been interviewed for television while on the sidelines or in the office. This was my first time on a set. There were some a few nerves, but outside of one flub — which Baker has assured me won’t make it out of the editing room — it went extremely well. 

   Kagarakis and I taped a five-minute interview that covered some of the highlights of what was an exceptional year in girls high school sports. I provided SportStars’ top three girls athletes of 2015-16, as well as our top three girls teams. Want to know who we named? Well, you’ll have to wait until June 23. That’s the tentative run date for the episode. The show begins a run of new episodes beginning on June 2. They will air weekly at 7 p.m. on Thursday nights. So check your channel guide and begin watching (there are also episodes On Demand). 

   We’re proud of our partnership with Game On, and we hope we can continue to do more of these interviews. Perhaps one day both the show and the magazine can work together to tell an athlete’s story both on the page and on screen. That would be fun. 

   Until then, we’re off to sit pool side and bask in our celebrity status.