Back in 1987, I was a football-obsessed 8-year-old. To help foster this passion, my dad – or Santa (can’t remember) – gifted me a subscription to Sports Illustrated for Christmas that year.

To anyone who remembers life back in the nineteen hundreds, you know you had to wait a little longer for things. By the time the first issue arrived, bowl games were finished and the Super Bowl had already been played. So it was a heavy dose of Winter Olympics, NBA, college basketball, hockey, and boxing (Mike Tyson was in the news a lot in ’88).

I would scour the magazine for any scraps of football info I could gobble up. Even with basketball, hockey, and the others, I always enjoyed the larger-than-life photos, the design of the cover, and how excited it made me about sports.

It took several years after high school before I realized that I could make a living doing something similar. I really do have a dream job of sorts. I get to be down on the field or along the baseline taking photos of Division 1 athletics. And because my employer is the flagship affiliate, I get to turn those photos into some pretty cool graphic design to help promote Husker sports on our stations.

I’ve even been paid to write about sports, though it’s been a few years since I did that. Sports are fun, and I really enjoy covering them and creating graphics featuring them.

Husker Sports at Broadcast House

One drawback to the Huskers changing uniforms is that the football graphics I updated our football pages with on KLIN and Froggy quickly became outdated. I probably have enough photos at this point to update them. It does take time, and with the transfer portal, who knows who’s coming and going? A ton of the volleyball roster is back though.

Because of the topsy-turvy world of the NIL era (plus it’s been one-and-done for years), i just went with the coaches for the basketball headers on KLIN and B107.3. A lot of the women are back, but Sam is gone on the men’s side. So is Rienk. It just made more sense to go with the coaches. We do use a lot of weekly graphics too.

We did think ahead this year to get photos of our on-air staff showing their Husker spirit. I then took those pictures and created some graphics for our tailgate parties. Too bad we didn’t consider the Blackout game. Still, I was able to change a lot of our Husker content from red to black.

High School Sports Graphic Design

I’m also still doing graphic design for KMA Sports. That experience has really helped me improve as a graphic designer, and you can see more of those designs here.

The point of all of this isn’t that I’m a lucky guy. I am. Not disputing that. I have a lot of people to thank for these opportunities. But I have worked hard to improve. And based on feedback and my own eye, I know I’ve gotten significantly better. I really just wanted to showcase that and say that I’m grateful.

Maybe my work will inspire someone out there, just as I was inspired by the writers, photographers, and designers before me. Sports have given me so much, with much to give anyone else wanting to join in.