This August as athletes from around the world display their prowess on the inter­national stage, 35 Ithaca College students will show off their own skills as they intern for NBC during the 2012 London Olympics.

There are students working in London and New York City. Some are working as runners, or gofers, for basketball, gymnastics, prime time, and the pool. Others are working as log­gers, reviewing the tape and recording the time stamps of different segments of it, for swimming, athletics, and tennis. Nine students are working in the Highlights Factory at 30 Rock in New York City and a few are working in Central Tape, where all the footage is funneled before going on the air.

Collin Schuck ’13 is slated to work as a log­ger at Central Tape in London. He’ll be logging tapes, editing video for highlights and future video packages, and writing a lot of time codes. When he found out he was chosen by NBC, he was overjoyed.

“There wasn’t a building that could contain my excitement,” he says. “It’s one of the big rea­sons I came to Ithaca College: to be able to in­tern at the Olympics. A wish had been fulfilled.”

Schuck says working on the first floor of the Roy H. Park School of Communications has helped him prepare for this internship. He’s worked with WICB, VIC Radio, and ICTV for the past three years doing not only on-air work, but also a lot of behind-the-scenes work, like editing audio and video.

“I’m sure it’s going to be a bit different from what I’ve done in terms of equipment, but the basic concepts are the same,” he says.
Ithaca College is one of a few schools from which NBC actively recruits interns, and this is the fourth year IC has sent a number of interns to the games (see next page to find out what past interns are doing today).

OLYMPIC MEMORIES

More than 30 years after the United States beat the Soviet Union in ice hockey at the Lake Placid Olympics, Neil Hartman ’82 still gets chills when he thinks about that moment.

“I felt like Forrest Gump,” he said. “Here I was in the middle of all these incredible things happening all around me. I was a 19-year-old sophomore at Ithaca College.”

Hartman, an award-winning sportscaster for Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia, left IC for a month in the middle of the school year to work as a production assistant at the Lake Placid Olympics in 1980. He got the announcers stats, water — anything they needed to do their jobs.

“Little did I know that I would witness a series of games that would quickly captivate our country,” Hartman wrote on the 32nd anniver­sary of that night.

When the U.S. hockey team beat the heav­ily favored Soviet Union 4-3 in a medal-round game at the Olympics, it shocked the world. Hartman stood right next to announcer Al Mi­chaels as he uttered the now famous line, “Do you believe in miracles?”

“What are the odds that a budding sports­caster would find himself in such a spot?” Hart­man asked.

But Hartman was calculated in his planning. He knew even before he went to college that he wanted to be a sportscaster, and IC was the only school to which he applied. An employee from ABC, which covered the Olympics at the time, had come to speak at IC the year before the Olympics, and Hartman talked to him after­ward and said he wanted a job.

Hartman was hired, and he was assigned to hockey and figure skating. He wasn’t a hockey fan before the Olympics, but he certainly was after.

“I’ve been to Super Bowls and Stanley Cup finals, World Series, and golf majors — every sporting event I’ve been able to cover,” he said. “But to me the Olympics is the pinnacle, espe­cially when you get to witness a moment. I’m still trying to catch the next great moment.”

ICLC CELEBRATES 40 YEARS

While London was celebrating the coming of the 2012 Olympics, Ithaca College was celebrating the 40th anniversary of the London Center. To celebrate the anniversary, the staff is compiling a book of stories about the center from alumni who participated. Submit your story at iclondoncenter@ithaca.edu.

See below for photos from the IC London Center over the years.