Sophomore and Junior Will Become New Hosts of “Sports Picks”

Sophomore Clark Doerr was sitting in Mr. Southwick’s physical science classroom watching the daily announcements. Like the rest of the class he laughed along, but next year he will be the one students are watching:  the new co-host of Sports Picks.

“I made a vine of watching ‘Saving Private Ryan,” junior Clark Doerr said. “I was in class and the guy next to me was watching it and said I was funny and I should be on Sports Picks. So I thought I could be like Will and Nick, because I’m comfortable talking to people and I like to entertain people.”

When an announcement went out that there was a meeting for people interested in being the new cast of the video announcements, Doerr realized that there was two spots open for new cast of Sports Picks because seniors Will Cray and Nick Kraske were graduating. He went to the meeting specifically to take the segment over. At the meeting, his fellow JV track runner, junior Joe Libeer, also made it known he was interested in taking over the segment.

“They were kind of the only guys who expressed interest in doing it,” Video production teacher Jennifer Hunter said. But, Cray understands.

“I was pretty surprised by the how few people were interested [in becoming the new cast],” Cray said. “But then I realized that I would probably be pretty intimidated to try and do the same thing as we do.”

Becoming the new face of Sports Picks means taking on the responsibility of entertaining people like the old cast used to do. According to Kraske, finding the right balance between entertainment and getting information into the segment is tricky and took him around year to get a well-balanced episode.

“Hopefully they’ll try to still make the episodes decently entertaining,” Kraske said. “Or at least attention-getting so that people will actually pay attention and give people something to look forward to every Friday.”

Kraske also recommends the boys should try to convey more information about the sports because one of his regrets is not making the episodes more focused.

After two years of watching the show grow and become what the student body knows today, Hunter believes the new cast will need a change.

“They have to come up with a completely different idea,” Hunter said. “There is no way you can carry over Sports Picks — the song, the theme. I think honestly they’re going to have to create something new that’s their own thing, their own format. I think Libeer and Doerr will start with their own ideas and it will kind of morph into what they want to do with it.”

Libeer says he and the editor of Sports Picks, junior John Moore, have already started the brainstorming process for segment ideas, but will not be doing any work on it over the summer. Hunter thinks Kraske and Cray will need to do an introduction to the new cast before the end of the year.

“My biggest concern is not living up to expectations,” Libeer said. “They’ve done such a good job with it. I’d like to do interviews the same, feature somebody each week, of course I’d like to keep it on sports. I don’t want to make it too different.”

But according to Hunter, it’s less about being funny and taking the place of the old cast and more about being a likeable person.

The changing of hosts is not the only change that is coming to Sports Picks. Video announcements filming will now take place in a daily class, not during seminar. Since it will be a regular part of their schedule Libeer would like to see two video announcements a week; however, that is mostly up to Moore. Kraske says the class will help with the planning to make the show more organized.

“We didn’t really plan anything,” Kraske said. “We kind of just walked in with an idea and improvise stuff. But the fact that they have a class is going to be awesome because maybe they’ll be able to hone in on their ideas in that class. I would definitely tell them to plan their ideas out better than we did, because we never really planned anything.”

With the change of cast, the boys  believe they will be compared to the former hosts. According to Libeer, he will take on more of the Nick persona because Nick talks more and he plans to make Doerr the butt of the jokes.

“Joe seemed really funny and goofy,” Kraske said. “I could see him taking on more of a Nick persona. I could see Clark being more of a straight man like Will.”

Cray says he hopes Doerr and Libeer are enthusiastic about the segments and do whatever they want as long as the students enjoy it.

“I wish them best of luck,” Cray said. “To come up with random ideas as well as Nick Kraske does.”