If you find yourself tuning in to ESPN’s SportsCenter, the stats and background info you’re hearing might just have been supplied by Lehigh alumnus David Gordon ’15. The marketing grad has worked for ESPN since 2016 and is now a senior researcher. In fact, he won an Emmy — Outstanding Studio Show, Daily — in 2021 for his work as an associate producer for SportsCenter.
Gordon was a student media relations intern for three years with the Lehigh Sports Information office “doing everything from helping to set up the field hockey games, writing recaps of men’s golf and feature stories on athletes, and radio play-by-play for men’s and women’s basketball.” His first job after graduation was with the NFL league office, until an opening at ESPN headquarters caught his eye.
Currently, Gordon works the late-night shift for SportsCenter, providing research and story ideas for the Scott Van Pelt Show. His day starts around 4:30 p.m. with a pre-show planning meeting and doesn’t conclude until about 2 a.m. But he loves the fast-paced adrenaline rush of doing live TV.
“For each SportsCenter show, there is a group of about eight of us, not including the anchors, who lay out the show and try to figure out what to put on-air that night. I take a look at the live events that are going on to see what storylines are most interesting and find some sort of research context or “hook” as the pitch for my idea. The group relies on the researchers to do that. We're the authority in the room when it comes to factual information,” Gordon says.
“That's just the first part of the job — the preparation for the show. With a night show, obviously anything can happen in a live-event window. Say someone has a spectacular performance in a basketball game. It's up to me to find out what's the best graphic to show about that performance. So I'll actually do the research, put it together in a graphic, build the graphic, and write the script for Scott Van Pelt to read. And then just do that over and over for about two hours.”
Gordon says winning the Emmy was “really rewarding. It definitely wasn't an individual award. But it was the first year that SportsCenter had won the Emmy for the Best Daily Studio show since 2014. It was great to be part of that small group.”
David Gordon’s top five ESPN moments:
- The 2020 Masters Tournament. “It was during the pandemic, and I got to go on the road with just a handful of staff to see the tournament in Augusta, Georgia. I’m a huge golf fan, so it was great. But it was surreal — for us and for the players — that there was no gallery, nothing was roped off.”
- The 2018 NBA Draft. “This was my first-ever travel assignment, in Brooklyn, New York. It was really fun to be a part of that.”
- Running into CJ McCollum ’13. “CJ was working for us as an analyst. We had crossed paths before at Lehigh — we both wrote for The Brown and White. One day, I went up to him after his segment, and we caught up.”
- Winning the Emmy. “I wasn’t the only one who won the award, but it was really exciting to be part of that small group. I wrapped mine up at Christmas and had my mother open it. She saw my name and freaked out.”
- Meeting former NBA player JJ Redick. “He was my childhood hero, so it was really exciting to meet him. (Actor) Chris Pratt came through the studio one day, too. You never know who’s going to show up — you just have to balance being professional with being a huge fan.”