ABC 7 STUDIO VISIT....

I had a great opportunity to go into the ABC 7 studios and sit on the set of SportsZone, posted by Rob Fukuzaki.  After The Be Perfect Foundation had been honored on ABC 7’s Pay it Forward campaign, as one of the recipients of the $7000 grant, Rob had saw the segment in the studio and realized who I was. I actually had the chance to meet Rob a few years ago during a playoff Lakers basketball game, when Rob came up and introduced himself to me during halftime of the game. He said he had heard my story and knew who I was through a mutual friend of ours, Gregg Hafif. So when Rob had saw the segment on the foundation for the Pay it Forward campaign, he asked the reporter, Elex Michelson, to notify me and asked if I wanted to come down to the studio to check things out. Rob had heard that I was attending University of Laverne to obtain a communications degree, which happens to be the exact school and degree that Rob got what he was going to college. So immediately Rob had felt a connection to me with the whole University of Laverne college degree. I willingly accepted Rob’s invitation to come down to the studio and he even offered me to bring along my buddy Connor Grochowski, who like myself is studying communications to be a sports broadcaster at Arizona State University. Connor, my dad, Tom Cerafice, Gregg Hafif, Fenja and myself went down to the studio on a Tuesday during the NBA finals. Rob thought it would be a good idea if I came down during the NBA finals and I was able to watch him on set due to his SportsZone segment following the end of the finals game. All those who went watch the fourth quarter of the finals in the lobby area of the studio while Rob finished up with his producer putting the final touches and highlights together for his show.  I could definitely tell that a lot of time and effort went in to prepping, preparing and even hosting the show.  With about four minutes left in the game Rob came out to the lobbyto grab all of us and take us to the set of the show. When we got on set I was definitely expecting something different than what we had saw, not because it wasn’t well put together or even not a class act, but I was simply expecting to see a room filled with a ton of cameramen and stage directors. The only people that were in the room onset were Rob, Lisa Leslie who was a pleasure to meet and talk to and quite funny, Michael Cooper who is the head women’s basketball coach at USC and even coached the LA Sparks for some time who was also hilarious, and the last person being the stage director. To set went to show not only the cutbacks that it is necessary to make now in our workforce by taking away jobs that may or may not be necessary to conserve on money, but it also showed how far along and how advanced our technology is becoming that we even have the opportunity to take away somebody’s jobs from individuals because technology can do it itself. The cameras were operated in the back control room by remote control. These cameras were super high-tech and from what we could tell were quite expensive. There were TVs everywhere throughout the entire set.  We got to see the green screen where the weather people would stand. It was pretty neat to put a face and actual setting, to what I thought a newsroom actually looked like.  It was so cool to see all the different backdrops and capabilities that they had to alter what the setting looked like on the monitors behind the people that were being filmed.  After the show started, I got to see Rob, Lisa and Michael give the SportsZone segment, and was completely blown away by what I saw.  Seeing and listening to Rob on camera definitely re-instilled my passion and my dreams of becoming a sportscaster. Rob is a true class act and performs at such a high level on camera that I believe people don’t really give him enough credit or even realize how good he is at what he does.  Even though Rob was reading off of a Teleprompter,  the way that he read it in the way that it flowed right out of his mouth he didn’t appear as if he was reading off of and anything. You could definitely tell that he had been doing it for years, with much hard work and much practice he did it flawlessly. Not to mention the improv that he recited by adding in much of his own lines and statistics while he was reading off the Teleprompter. It was definitely a well put together and classy show that was done the right way. Lisa and Michael were to die themselves with their great analysis and input on the game of basketball and on the NBA finals game between the Heat and the Mavericks. You could tell that they all put in much time and effort into doing what they do and they all definitely knew the game of basketball. What I admired him most about Rob is the fact that he doesn’t just know basketball he knows about all sports and that shows me that he is a true sports fan. It was pretty funny to see Lisa and Michael Cooper butt head’s and rag on each other during commercial’s. The accommodations that we received from Rob were pretty unbelievable.After the segment of SportsZone was over, Rob then proceeded to give all of us but to her of the ABC 7 studios. It was so neat to see how much hard work and effort goes in and behind the scenes of the set inside the ABC 7 headquarters.  Rob showed us many different control rooms and transponder rooms, where various people worked fanatically to run a very well put together and while ran segment. Rob also showed us many different offices that people utilized throughout the facility, including his office as well as the weather caster for Channel 7, Dallas Raines, office. Overall it was an unbelievable experience and I only hope that fat opportunities leads to many more for myself as well as for my friend Connor, while we both continue to pursue our dreams of becoming sportscasters of our own someday.  I want to thank Rob and everybody else at ABC for being so accommodating to everybody that came, and we deeply appreciate everything that you guys have done for us in making one of the most memorable nights my life.