During her sophomore, junior, and senior years at St. Lawrence, Caleigh Burchfield served as a Division I Multimedia Publicist for the Women's Hockey Program and it was a busy time for her, to say the least. A few of her responsibilities were: traveling with the team to home and away games, coding all games to then be exported to team and coach tablets, managing Twitter activity, and editing highlights using BoxCast. She also conducted pre and post-game interviews with NCAA Division 1 coaches and players and created content and branding videos for these teams.
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Her skills have not gone unrecognized, as she has had multiple internships in the world of sports with both the Pittsburgh Penguins and Major League Lacrosse. Burchfield was also recently granted the Brian Fisherman Fellowship with USA Hockey. It is safe to say her journalist skills have contributed to her success. Here's what anyone interested in a career in sports media can learn from her.
Q: What interests you about creating multimedia for a sports team? What types of content do you create? Do some perform better than others?
A: I like that there's so many different forms of multimedia and content. As far as why sports specifically, I love them, and hockey is my favorite. I focus a lot on Twitter, graphics, and post-game recaps with St. Lawrence specifically. However, when I was with Major League Lacrosse in 2020, I was running two teams' TikTok pages and making Instagram Reels, which were both really fun. We (MLL) got very lucky when we started posting on Reels because it was a platform Instagram had created to directly rival TikTok, meaning they were promoting any videos posted and reels like crazy. Some of our reels were banking in over 100,000 views, whereas our regular Instagram posts would sometimes struggle to even reach stats like that in impressions, let alone engagement.
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Q: How do you go about building relationships with athletes to get your foot in the door for interviews?
A: Going to school with all of the athletes I worked with at St. Lawrence definitely made this easier! I think the biggest thing I have found to be successful is to try and build a friendship with athletes throughout the course of the time you spend working with them so that you build a comfort level with one another. Not only do you get better answers, but this leaves room for more interesting and personal questions.
Q: What kind of research do you do on players before conducting interviews?
A: Luckily, because I'm working with Division I athletes, there's a lot of information out there about an athlete's career, from high school to juniors/U18s to recruitment, which is great. Some key facts I always want to know before heading into an interview are hometown, age, most recent team, if any family played/plays, and some stats from recent games that might be relevant to the story.
Q: Did your work in creating multimedia content contribute to landing internships with professional teams?
A: Absolutely. I feel like every position I have landed, including my job following graduation, can be traced back to my time working with the St. Lawrence hockey teams. Not only did I gain so much knowledge and sharpen the necessary skill set during that time, but I was also able to make so many connections and leave a mark on people that I believe made me a marketable individual.
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Q: What makes a story good in your opinion?
A: A good subject! As great as game recaps are, they aren't the most interesting to write (or read). I am a huge fan of human interest stories. I read an ESPN feature the other day on a New York Rangers fan who's been bringing an inflatable flamingo to games since '86 to different NY sporting events. I think those are fun to tell. I wrote one while at St. Lawrence on a couple of athletes that participated in ROTC. The average fan might not ever know that if it weren't for the people writing them, whereas a recap is more run-of-the-mill in my opinion. There are only so many ways to write about a wrister from the point and a glove save.
Q: I know it is a fast paced environment, so how do you manage to get those stories done and out?
A: Practice. The first recap I ever wrote was for a soccer game and I had no idea what I was doing. I watched the whole game without writing a single thing down and it took me so long to write it. Now, I have a routine down. As for human interest stories, I think you set just a deadline and make it.
Q: Could you discuss a little bit about the differences in interviews you conduct based on if the team wins or loses the game?
A: After a win, people have a lot more to say and are more willing to share it. After a loss, not so much, which is totally valid. I think the biggest difference is probably in how I frame the questions I'm asking, taking a “what went right” approach vs. a “what went wrong” approach.
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Q: What type of questions do you usually ask?
A: I was told once to always have the first word be a question word, so something like “what,” “how,” “why,” etc. It's also important to make sure every question is different enough that you aren't getting the same answers. I like to ask about very specific moments.
Q: Do you record these interviews? How do you edit them?
A: I always record them on VoiceMemos on my phone and use Otter.ai to transcribe them. If I'm filming, I'll use my Canon with an external mic and edit on Adobe Premiere.
Q: How do you format your interviews? More conversational or formal?
A: I much prefer conversational. When you level with someone like that, it makes it so much easier. If I'm interviewing someone before a game, they're about to hit the ice, so they're nervous themselves, and certainly don't need any of my nervous energy! Keeping it conversational helps with that for me.
Burchfield shows just how much the love of a game can take you, taking her passion for sports and turning it into a career. She encourages you to follow those passions even if you are not playing, reminds us to keep things light and conversational when interviewing athletes, and to go in prepared. These tips can make starting on the sports publicist path feel just a bit easier.
Have a story idea or know an awesome athletics staff member we should interview? Email us at [email protected]
* Originally published on August 8, 2022, by Casey Chizmazia
