Alum Chick Working as Videographer for Manchester Fisher Cats and Monarchs
Jen Chick never played a sport at Keene State College, but that hasn’t stopped the 2009 KSC grad from trying to land a job in the big leagues – behind the scenes and behind a camera as a videographer.
Chick is currently paying her dues, working her way up to the professional ranks by serving as a videographer for a couple of minor league teams based in Manchester: the Fisher Cats, the double-A affiliate of Major League Baseball’s Toronto Blue Jays, and the Monarchs, the American Hockey League entry of the NHL’s Los Angeles Kings.
“I’d definitely like to keep doing this,” said Chick, a diehard Duke basketball fan. “A lot of people I work with in Manchester also do Red Sox, Celtics, and Bruins games, so I hope I keep moving up and eventually get a shot at shooting professional sports. That would be a dream.”
The Strafford, NH, native parlayed her passion for sports and keen eye with a camera to land her jobs with the two Manchester-based teams. Her love for sports comes from her family. Both her father, Craig, and her Uncle Dan were longtime basketball coaches in the area. Meanwhile, Chick acquired her competence with a camera by taking film and TV production classes at Keene State.
“I took a bunch of film classes at college, but I was more sports driven so I went into journalism,” said Chick, who took over as the sports editor of the KSC student newspaper the Equinox as a senior.
Chick was also well-schooled in all facets of broadcast journalism and production by Professor Rose Kundanis, who oversees KSC-TV, the student-produced weekly newscast. “She pretty much made us do everything. I liked doing the camera work and I was always doing sports stories,” said Chick, who received the 2009 Sports Reporter of the Year award in the Journalism Department.
Chick wasn’t always working behind the scenes. She was a three-sport athlete at Coe-Brown (NH) Northwood Academy, helping her cross-country team capture a state championship her junior season and playing point guard for a Black Bear basketball squad that made two final-four appearances in the Class I tournament. Her Coe-Brown softball teams built the foundation for a program that has flourished in recent years.
It was love at first sight when it came to choosing a college for Chick, who subscribed to the Goldilocks principle. “Keene State was the first one I visited and I fell in love with it. It wasn’t too big and wasn’t too small,” said Chick, who now resides in Keene.
Just Do It
A freelance videographer, Chick, who worked for a production company doing weddings and commercials for local businesses, took her first foray into sports with the NH Sports Page, a website that provides in-depth coverage of high school football and basketball teams in the Granite State. Dave Haley, who attended Keene State in the mid-1990s and started the site eight years ago, was impressed by Chick’s “just do it” attitude. “I get emails from high school and college students who say they are fans of the site and looking for jobs,” said Haley, a former sportswriter for the Equinox who owns and serves as editor-in-chief for the NH Sports Page. “I tell people, ‘Don’t tell me – just go and do it.’ Jen was just one of those people. She actually went out and shot a football game on her own. She did a nice job and we posted it. Jen is incredibly talented and has an eye for a scene that is amazing. I can’t say enough good things about her.”
The enterprising Chick learned about the videographer position with the Fisher Cats on Craig’s List. Hired as one of the team’s videographers last season, Chick bounced around Northeast Delta Dental Stadium, shooting game action, running the video board, and taking part in numerous contests and promotions that take place before the game and between innings. “It’s like a balancing act,” she said. “You’re covering baseball, but at the same time you’ve got to be thinking about where you have to be for the next inning. So it’s a lot of multi-tasking.”
Chick especially enjoys the crowd-pleasing contests and antics that take place between frames. Using her discerning eye, she pans the crowd, looking to engage fans in a variety of video hijinks ranging from the dance-cam and silly-face-cam to the oblivious-cam – when she singles out an unsuspecting fan not paying attention. Sixty seconds are put on the clock to see if the fan looks up and notices that he/she is on the video board. “That’s what I love about the Fisher Cats games. It’s really family oriented and I get to interact with the fans,” said Chick. “It’s fun shooting fans and seeing how excited they get.”
Chick also found her gig with the Monarchs online. Submitting an application for the job, she was surprised when a member of the Monarchs’ video production team came up to her while she was working at a Fisher Cats game. “I put two and two together and realized he came to see me. He said, ‘You look like you know what you’re doing,’ and brought me in for an interview.”
A videographer for all seasons, Chick made an easy transition from the grass to the ice. Shooting the games from different vantage points around the Verizon Wireless Arena, she prefers to be right on top of the action. “I’ve shot at all the positions, but the one I like the most is right behind the glass on the floor because I can get all the up-close and personal shots, like when they’re checking someone right in front of me. My blood starts pumping. It’s almost like you’re part of the game.”
Chick will be busy commuting from Keene to Manchester in the weeks ahead. The Monarchs are the top team in the Eastern Division of the American Hockey League and are getting set for the Calder Cup playoffs, while the Fisher Cats are scheduled to begin their season on April 9.
In the meantime, Chick, who made her ESPNU debut manning the camera for an NCAA Hockey game this winter, will continue her own push to someday work as a videographer for a professional sports team. “Sometimes I feel like one of the players working my way through an organization,” she said.
