According to Gilbert Bransford, Ferris State alumni and ESPN employee, the most excit­ing thing about work­ing at ESPN is no day is ever the same.

Since Bransford was five years old, he knew his dream was to work at ESPN. He saw his chance when he attended a jour­nal­ism con­fer­ence in Chicago as a recent graduate.

“ESPN had a table at this con­fer­ence, and I must have walked by it four or five times just try­ing to get the courage to say any­thing. Luckily I ran into one of my friends I went to col­lege with and he had been work­ing there for four years,” Bransford said. “He intro­duced me to his boss, and once I started talk­ing to him I was just fine. It was just get­ting the oppor­tu­nity to talk to someone.”

After the con­fer­ence and Bransford’s con­ver­sa­tion, he landed a phone inter­view with ESPN where they asked him trivia ques­tions about his favorite and least favorite sports.

“As much research as I did, my mind still went blank because it was ESPN. I ended up get­ting offered a posi­tion as a project sta­tis­tics asso­ciate,” Bransford said. “The max­i­mum num­ber of hours I was guar­an­teed was 24 a week and I had to move out there [Connecticut] on my own dime. I almost con­sid­ered not tak­ing it.”

Fortunately for Bransford, his uncle con­vinced him to take the job and fol­low his dream. When he arrived in Bristol, Conn. in August 2009, Bransford’s new focus was on how he was going to set him­self apart from the other employees.

His job was to pro­vide accu­rate entry of game box scores and make calls to ver­ify those scores. Bransford spent extra hours learn­ing and vol­un­teered for addi­tional oppor­tu­ni­ties when possible.

In March 2010, Bransford was hired as a sta­tis­tics asso­ciate I, and then in November 2010 was pro­moted to sta­tis­tics asso­ciate II where he worked with not only sta­tis­tics, but also video analy­sis for col­lege foot­ball, bas­ket­ball, as well as the NBA.

In February 2011, Bransford was pro­moted to sta­tis­tics ana­lyst I, which is what he is cur­rently doing. One day, he hopes to be on tele­vi­sion talk­ing about the sports he loves.

Bransford grad­u­ated from Ferris State University in May 2009 with a degree in applied speech com­mu­ni­ca­tion. He added that com­mu­ni­ca­tion and learn­ing how to talk to employ­ers were the biggest things he had taken away from Ferris.

“My advice to stu­dents with big dreams is don’t give up, and do not get dis­cour­aged,” Bransford said. “It’s very easy because the process is long and drawn out, but take advan­tage of the oppor­tu­ni­ties. It’s not always what you know, it’s who you know and what you can prove to them after you get
introduced.”

Related Posts

1. Dream Team
2. Independent Living
3. Tuition Costs More Than Living Expenses?
4. Living the Legacy
5. Healthy Living on Campus