Connor Nolte

Whats up everybody? I’m back in Athens, GA ready to start my fourth year of college. I had a great summer working for ESPN in Bristol, CT. If you didn’t read my blogs about it I’m going to sum it up with some pictures.

I got to attend the EA Sports NBA Elite 11 party celebrating the announcement that Kevin Durant was on the cover.

Brandon Jennings was at the party and asked me if I wanted to play him in NBA Jam. He failed to tell me all the buttons and proceeded to kill me. One of my best scoring opportunities came when he took out his phone to send Andrew Bogut a picture of his character in the game.

Took a video of all the posters we ordered for the Madden Special on SportsNation

My group was based in New York and when we got to the hotel to check in we were asked if we would mind being upgraded to the Presidential Suite since they were running low on rooms. We didn’t mind.

My personal bedroom had two beds and a great view of Times Square.

After our summer review meetings we headed to Yankee Stadium and made it in time to see ARod hit home run #600.


However, the highlight of the game had to be THIS GUY.

On an earlier trip I met up with some Gymdogs in NYC.

Switchfoot came and played a concert on the lawn during my lunch hour.

You already know who won this game of pop-a-shot during our end of the summer event at Dave and Busters…

After the internship I drove down to New Orleans to attend Madden Gras, EA’s Madden 11 release party.  I did some work for ESPN.com and enjoyed the festivities.

There was a Stihl Timbersports exhibition in the parking lot of ESPN one day.  I lasted 2 seconds on the log roll.

What’s up Passer’s Remorse faithful? Its the offseason so if you are reading this right now you’re either a loyal fan or someone tricked you into visiting my blog.

Big news coming out of Athens this week.  I don’t know if I can comment on this stuff but…BOOOOOOOOOOM!

Time is flying up here in Bristol, Connecticut. It feels like I just got here but there are only 3 weeks left of this internship.  I’m going to miss working here.  Not only am I interning at ESPN for the summer; I have one of the best jobs at the company.

Like I said before, I work on the interactive games team.  I’ve been working on our Facebook games, ESPN Arcade, and with EA Sports. Yes, EA Sports, the creators of the best video games ever. They make FIFA Soccer, Madden NFL, NCAA Football, NBA Elite (formerly known as NBA Live), and the new NBA Jam to name a few.

One of my favorite assignments of the summer was creating two videos showcasing the top ten college football teams in EA’s NCAA Football 11 in support of its release this past Tuesday. To put the two videos together I:

• Called the guys at EA to discuss the footage they would be sending me and the script
• Got the tapes in the mail and brought them to the Ingest lab to digitize the video and put it on the server
• Layed down a voiceover track.  I sat down recording booth reading the script to create a “scratch track” this was to fill in for the final voiceover read by someone with actual talent.  (I was actually interrupted by Steve Bunin, who frequently hosts Outside the Lines, because he needed to record something for SportsCenter.)
• Went down to the digital media building to edit it all together.
• Replaced my voiceover with the real one read by Paul Severino and tweaked the video to match.
• Published the video to ESPN.com
• Sent my work to Jon Robinson, the ESPN.com/videogames editor and he included it in this article.
• SportsNation talked about the release of NCAA Football 11 and showed the article on their show.

You can see the videos here and here. I’m out. Heading to NYC for meetings in the morning. Setting the Alarm for 5am.

I was a fan of SportsNation from the day I found out it was going to exist.  I had always been a fan of Colin Cowherd’s radio show on ESPN radio.  Then I was fortunate enough to be featured on the show’s Weird Web Stories segment for my trick shots. Now, any time I see someone that works for the show around campus I am referred to as “Barkley Guy”.

Today I was able to be part of the live studio audience. My boy Dan is interning with the show and he told me that they were having a pop a shot contest. Obviously I had to attend.

I got there 15 minutes early and they were rehearsing for the pop a shot contest.  A few minutes before showtime Ric Bucher walked in to host the contest. The pop a shot expert shot blindfolded and ended up beating Michelle and Colin’s combined scores.

Check out a few pics here.

Another amazing week down. It started last Sunday afternoon when I found out I’ll be on scholarship this season.  I have the best parents in the world and words can’t describe the phone calls I made to them after hearing from Coach Fox.

Monday was business as usual in my cubicle in Bristol.  Since my group works with EA Sports, I had been reading emails about their plans to announce Kevin Durant as the cover athlete of NBA Elite ‘11 on Tuesday.  My boss was out of town so I made the call to his boss in New York and convinced him to let me work out of New York City on Tuesday so I would be able to attend the launch party that night.

I got up early on Tuesday for a day in the city.  I don’t know what all I can talk about so I’ll be very vague. I was able to sit in on ESPN Arcade meetings and a couple conference calls.  Everything I do for my job is interesting to me. Like I said before, this is a dream job for me…Sports, Video Games, and Marketing.

Tuesday night I headed over to the Bryant Park Hotel for the NBA Elite open house. There were  TVs everywhere with either NBA Elite for Xbox or NBA Jam for the Wii, plenty of food, and pretty much everything else you could think of.

I took it all in for a few minutes before deciding to play NBA Jam. I picked up a controller and someone walked over and asked if I want to play.  The someone was Brandon Jennings. He ended up destroying me. It made me feel better when he blasted Kevin Durant later in the night.

The place was full of other NBA players/future NBA players.  Guys I saw were: Kevin Durant, Stephen and Seth Curry, Brandon Jennings, Wes Johnson, Ed Davis, John Wall, and Demarcus Cousins. The rapper J. Cole was also in attendance.

I talked with Steph Curry about our days in the SoCon together. I usually didn’t guard him unless I picked him up in transition but he was almost always guarding me when we played Davidson.  He’s a class act and its been fun to watch him in the league.

I had a pretty serious case of word vomit when I saw Demarcus Cousins walk in.  As he walked past me he dapped me up and the words just spewed out of my mouth: “My boy Travis says Whatup.”

Demarcus: “Cool tell him hey for me.”

Me: “I play for Georgia so I ‘m good friends with Travis Leslie.”

You should have seen the look on his face when he realized which Travis I was talking about (Click the link if you don’t know which Travis I’m talking about). I don’t think he cared too much. He had other things on his mind, such as getting ready to be drafted 5th overall. John Wall told me later in the night that the team didn’t let Demarcus live that moment down for the whole season.

For the rest of the night I mingled with some of the EA Sports marketers and developers as well as my man Lang Whitaker (Executive editor of SLAM magazine) and Aron Philips (Associate editor of Dime magazine).

I was back in Bristol, CT for the rest of the week. Thursday, Seth Meyers, the host of the ESPY’s, was on campus. He was the guest for ESPN’s Newsmaker lunch, an off the record question and answer session.  I’ve always been a fan of his and it was great to be able to attend something like that.

Saturday I was able to take in a few hours of the PGA Tour event in Hartford, the Travelers Championship, before watching the USA-Ghana match. There were 6 or 7 interns in my living room watching the game but the reaction to Landon Donovon’s goal rivaled some of the reactions in this amazing video.

Its now Sunday evening and I’m getting ready to head to a local high school for another night of pickup basketball. There’s a pretty competitive group of guys that gets together 3 times a week up here in Bristol.

Check out some pictures from my summer by clicking on this pic below:

I made it back from an amazing trip to NYC on Thursday night.  I had a great time working in our offices there.  The first day there I went to lunch with an account executive in the affiliate sales department so I could learn about that aspect of ESPN.  After lunch eating lunch at Bryant park I headed down the street to the building that my group works out of. There was an empty cubicle so I set up shop there.  I got to sit in on some meetings about social media and another about the ESPN3/Microsoft deal.

Outside of work, I was able to see some friends who are now interning/working in the city and I got to go to the Yankees-Phillies world series rematch. Another hightlight was stopping by the Dime Magazine offices. It was really cool to get a behind the scenes look at a hoops magazine like that.

This didn’t happen in New York but now that its the weekend I finally had time to put it up. Ladies and gentlemen, I present Jev Valles:

I was on the verge of my most epic fail of the year before everything fell into place. I’m writing this from the train into New York City.

7:00 AM: wake up, shower, pack
8:00 AM: drive to Dunkin Donuts
8:03 AM: look down to see a big glob of chocolate frosting on my shirt one donut in (out of 3)
8:04 - 8:45AM: Sing alongs in the car. Ya boy was rocking out. I hope my fellow drivers enjoyed the show.
8:45 AM: Arrive in New Haven to a slew of FULL parking decks and parking lots.
8:47 AM: Ran a red light. I swear the yellow lights last a half second up here.
8:49 AM: Ran another red light. I swear the yellow lights last a half second up here.
8:50 AM: Cop with lights on is fast approaching from the rear. You gotta be kidding me!!!! He gets 3 car lengths behind me and turns the siren on and blows through the intersection.
8:52 AM: pull up to a parking deck and hear a huge thud on my roof and see a sign that’s telling me the max clearance is 6′0″. I have to reverse out of the deck. Thankfully nobody is behind me.
8:55 AM: Spend 10 minutes driving around a parking deck before finding a spot.
9:07 AM: Hit up Walgreens in downtown New Haven to buy some Tide to go. The lady at the register was trying not to laugh as she stared directly at my stained shirt like I was in that Tide commercial with the yelling mustard stain. She gave me directions to the train station.
9:23 AM: purchased my train ticket
9:28 AM: board the 9:30 train from New Haven to Grand Central
9:30 AM: start looking everywhere for my stupid train ticket. Found it in a random pocket in my backpack
9:31 AM: TIDE TO GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
9:33 AM: Where did I put my train ticket again????
9:34 AM: Realize that the really loud ladies in front of me could be on this SNL skit
9:36 AM: Train lady is checking tickets. “Hang on a second I JUST had it in my hand.” Found it in a random pocket in my backpack.
9:37 AM: Start blogging on my phone.

I’ve been working at The Worldwide Leader in Sports for a little over a week now and I’m loving every second of it.  I’ve been given two titles. Depending on who’s asking I am either a “Digital Media Integration Specialist” or an “Interactive Games Intern”. My group gets to work with some awesome companies like EA Sports and Microsoft as well as numerous other groups at the company and I’ve been getting priceless experience. My boss and I are the only ones that work in Bristol, CT and the rest of the team works out of NYC. I’ll be making the trip to New York to work out of the offices there for a couple days this week.

This internship really is the perfect thing for me. It combines my major (Marketing), with a hobby of mine (Video games), with my passion (Sports).  Dream Job.

June 3rd was my first day and I wanted to make a good impression. I got to work a early only to realize that it would probably not be the best idea to start working on what my boss had recommended. I was supposed to be playing Facebook games and games on ESPN.com/arcade to get familiarized with what the team was working on.  I started thinking about it and decided to just check out ESPN.com instead of play games. I’m trying to impress people here and showing up early to play Facebook games doesn’t seem like it would be a great way to show you’re a hard worker…

Another reason I didn’t want to play games ASAP was because of this clip from the movie Rocketman.

I’ve been working on a number of projects including the ESPN Arcade Facebook and Twitter pages. There’s something awesome going on here all the time.  The World Cup is obviously a HUGE deal here at ESPN. The A Team was on campus on Friday so Liam Neeson and Rampage Jackson were out on the basketball court taking pictures in front of the A Team van.  Jared Dudley was on campus for a couple days last week and Carlos Boozer also stopped by.

The living arrangements are perfect. They put us up in townhouses in downtown Hartford.  I basically leave my bedroom for work around 8 and then don’t go back until right before bed.  There are around 40 ESPN interns in the same complex and we’re always hanging out in someone’s living room playing the new FIFA World Cup video game, watching the NBA Finals, Stanley Cup finals, botched perfect games, etc…Outside of playing college basketball at the best university in the world, this is the coolest thing I’ve been a part of.

Speaking of basketball, my boss is Mike Bucklin, a former UGA bball player and brother of the legendary Matt Bucklin. He organizes a pretty competitive pickup game that goes on 3 nights a week and I’ve been lifting weights at a fitness center in downtown Hartford as well as the fitness center on campus at ESPN. The first weekend we were in Hartford a group of interns and I went on an excursion to find a basketball court to hoop on.  We rolled up 15 deep in one of the rougher areas of Hartford.  You should have seen the look on our opponents faces.  My team ended up going 3-1 with a fluke loss.

Time to get back to work. Check back in the next couple days for another update.

About 2 and a half months ago ESPN made a presentation at the UGA student center.  I learned some info about the company from the informational part of the presentation but I felt like they spent the majority of the time trying to convince us how awesome it is to work for ESPN. I left the meeting a little disappointed because I didn’t need anybody to convince me that ESPN would be a good place to work.  I’ve always thought it would be a dream job.  I was hoping to find out the chances of actually getting an internship with the company.  As expected, the number of applications they get was huge.  I felt good about my resume but wasn’t sure if it would even be seen.

This Wednesday will be my first day of work as an ESPN intern.  I still can’t believe that I’m here.  I drove the 17 hours from Atlanta to Hartford, CT and got everything moved in yesterday.  I really can’t wait to get started.  I’ll be working as a digital media integration “specialist”.  To be honest I’m not sure exactly what that means.  I’m convinced that one of the main reasons I was able to get this internship is this blog and the videos I created during the season.  I can’t thank the fans enough for the support you gave me during my redshirt season by commenting on the blog, videos, and messaging me on twitter. I would have never guessed that it would have become as popular as it did (Speaking of twitter, you might have heard the news).

I’ll try to update regularly over the next 10 weeks.

The 17 hour drive up wasn’t as bad as it sounds. I drove for 14 hours on Friday and stayed with a friend who is in grad school at Penn State.

Something I’ve enjoyed throughout my college career is cheering on other athletes I’ve gotten to know.  When you’re a fan of a team its always awesome to be there in person to support that team.  When you’re a college athlete you are constantly seeing and getting to know other athletes at study hall, the dining halls, the weight room, etc.  That makes it even more exciting to watch.

I have to admit I didn’t make it to as many UGA sporting events as I wanted to this year but I went to multiple football games, baseball games, gymnastics meets, volleyball matches, as well as women’s basketball games. Truth be told, I was a spectator at our basketball games thanks to the NCAA requiring me to redshirt.

One of the teams I failed to see compete before this weekend was the Tennis team.

I don’t know why it took me so long to attend a match and I’m literally upset with myself that I didn’t make it out during the regular season.  I’ve been to NBA playoff games, the Final Four, bigtime football games. However, my favorite sporting event of all time was the US Open in New York City in the fall of 2006.  I got to see Andre Agassi beat Marcos Baghdatis in a match that was sold out and the stadium was full until the match ended at 2am. A few days later I saw Agassi’s last match ever.  I was also able to watch Andy Roddick, Rafa Nadal, Roger Fedderer, and Andy Murray up close.  In my opinion, tennis is one of the best sports to watch live.

I walked over to our amazing tennis facility to watch the first and second round of the NCAA Tournament this past weekend.  UGA beat UNC-Greensboro on Saturday and Florida State on Sunday.  Outside of watching my own team take care of business this season, this weekend’s match vs. Florida State was my favorite sporting event of the year.

UGA won the doubles point and needed to win 3 of the 6 singles matches to beat Florida State. We lost 3 of the first 4 matches.  We needed Javier Garrapiz and Drake Bernstein to win their matches or the season was over.  Javi lost the first set but won a second set tiebreaker to stay alive and went on to win the third set.  Drake won the first set, lost the second set in a tiebreaker, and had the fate of the team resting on his shoulders as he won the third set.

The atmosphere was incredible.  Javi was on the first court on my left while Drake was to my right on the fourth court.  UGA and the annoyingly vocal FSU players were constantly monitoring the scoreboard and swiveling their heads back and forth between matches.

I strongly encourage anyone in Athens to come out and support the team this Friday at 6pm against Florida.  A little over a month ago UGA lost to Florida.  Christian Vitulli, who was an extreme baller this past weekend finishing off his UNC-G and FSU opponents without any drama, was injured and was out of the singles line up. Also, the loss took place in Gainesville, Florida.  It was obvious this weekend that the Dawgs were feeding off of the crowds’ energy.  Even if you aren’t a tennis fan and have little interest in the sport, it really is an awesome event to see in person.  Help the Dawgs take advantage of the fact that the NCAA championships are in the best city in the world: Athens, Georgia.

Ok so I might not have died but it would have been pretty ugly.  Here’s the deal:

Drivers seat: Me

Riding Shotgun: Howard “Trey” Thompkins

Behind me: Dustin “Dimes” Ware

Behind Trey: Travis “T-Bird” Leslie

We were on on Baxter street minding our own business, driving the speed limit. We got to the intersection of Baxter and Dudley when this giant construction truck decided he was going to make a left turn in front of our car.  I’m still not convinced he wasn’t TRYING to hit us. He didn’t have a turn arrow and the light was green. He must have just been planning on turning after the car in front of us without looking to see if anyone was following because he pulled out RIGHT in front of us.

I immediately slammed on the brakes and whipped the steering wheel as far to the right as I could. In the meantime, the truck slammed on his brakes and somehow we never made contact.  He began backing out of the intersection because there were other cars coming straight towards him. Our car proceeded to hop up on the curb heading straight towards a pole. We were slowing down but not fast enough so I whipped the wheel all the way back to the left. Next thing you know we were off the curb and back on Baxter as if nothing happened.

The whole car was in shock for the rest of the drive.

College basketball is officially over.  I thought that was one of the best tournaments I’ve ever watched.   I genuinely didn’t care who won the Championship game between Butler and Duke.  I would have been happy no matter what.  I love underdog stories and obviously Butler would have been the epitome of that.  I met some of Duke’s team and their coaching staff this summer and even though everybody hates them, they are quality people.

In case you missed it, my “trick shot” with Charles Barkley was on ESPN’s SportsNation a few times over the past week. It ended up being the #1 Weird Web Story of the Week.

ESPN has a new show on ABC on Saturday’s at 5 ET called Winner’s Bracket. I’ve been told my video will be featured on there this afternoon so check it out.  They make a bracket of the Top 16 highlights of the week and debate until they pick the best one.

Check out the Grand Finale of the Game Day Trick Shot Series: