KTSW Sports interviews Bill Schoening and Bill Land

April 02, 2016

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Six Texas State students from senior lecturer Larry Carlson's Sports as News course and the KTSW Sports Dept. staff took a field trip to the home of the five-time NBA champion San Antonio Spurs, the AT&T Center, on Wednesday, March 30, just prior to San Antonio's game against the New Orleans Pelicans. Mike Kickirillo, Director of Broadcasting for the Spurs and a 1988 graduate, hosted the group with a tour of the newly refurbished arena's camera set-up and the broadcast crew's truck. Kickirillo showed the students how the pre-game show would be set up and explained the use of cameras, replays, statistic boxes and the integration of highlights, incoming scores from across the NBA, etc.Inside the truck, the Texas State students met numerous Bobcat alums and even current students who are part of the Spurs' broadcast team. In addition to Kickirillo, the other Texas Staters on the Spurs payroll include Daniel Ashcraft, Carter Snowden, Robert Fisher, Aerin Carreno, Taylor Hair, Avery Schneider and Tessa Andrade. Chuy Perez, one of the students on the trip, and a class member and KTSW staffer, said the overwhelming presence of Bobcats on the Spurs staff was inspiring."I've been a Spurs fan for so long, and the whole trip was incredible...just walking out on the court and getting to sit on the Spurs bench was amazing," Perez said. "But getting to see and meet all of those Bobcats working for the Spurs was maybe the highlight."The students also got a thrill from a 30-minute visit and Q&A session with Bill Land and Bill Schoening, the TV and radio "voices of the Spurs," respectively. The veteran broadcasters swapped stories, answered questions and advised the students.Land praised Texas State's approach of providing SJMC students with "real world" experience and Schoening mentioned the positive impact a Texas State education had on his son, Karl, a recent graduate and former KTSW sports director. Several of the students stayed for the game and saw San Antonio keep its perfect home record intact for the season, with a 100-92 victory over the Pelicans."It's just a lot of fun to be able to do this for our students each year," Carlson said. "Kick (Kickirillo) was one of my first students up in Old Main and we've been the best of friends for about three decades. He has built a championship broadcast team around a lot of our graduates because he was sold on them as interns while they were still students."