Alum Lassoes An Emmy Award
Kip Kroeger '04 recently took home an Emmy for best comedy at the 2021 ceremony for his work on Ted Lasso.
Building a career in television production is no easy task. Jobs only last as long as the show they are attached to, so long-term security is elusive at best. But Kip Kroeger ’04 has managed to thrive in the 16 years since he moved to Los Angeles after graduating from NC State.
“I’ve always had this sort of mentality of you’ve got to be hustling, you’ve got to be looking for your next gig,” says Kroeger, who grew up in Kinston, N.C. “And you’ve got to be doing everything you can to build relationships and find people you really love to work with.”
That approach paid off recently, when Kroeger received an Emmy Award for his work as a supervising producer for Ted Lasso, the popular comedy series about an American coach hired to manage an English football team. As one of the lead producers on the show, now in its second season on Apple TV+, Kroeger was part of the group honored when the show received the Emmy for outstanding comedy series.
It was a crowning achievement for a career that has seen Kroeger, 39, rise from being a production assistant (the person who runs out to buy coffee or lunch for the crew) on a hit show like Scrubs to the man responsible for post-production (editing, sound, color, etc.) on one of the hottest shows on television. He has also worked on shows such as The Conners, Roseanne and Home Economics.
“It’s super cool when there’s recognition and people are like, ‘We’re validating what we’ve seen, and we dig it,’” Kroeger says. “And so it’s all surreal.”
The award, at least for now, sits on a TV table in Kroeger’s bedroom.
The only downside of the occasion was that Kroeger’s wife was not able to attend the ceremony due to restrictions on the crowd size as a result of COVID. Had she been there, she might have been able to prevent his one slip-up of the night. When the cast and producers from Ted Lasso gathered on stage to accept the award, Kroeger was standing with his arm around Jason Sudeikis, the show’s star and one of its creators. Kroeger was beaming in his tuxedo, unaware that his shirt was partially unbuttoned.
“That was my very special wardrobe malfunction,” he says with a laugh. “I’ve gotten so many screen grabs from friends, asking why I needed to show skin on TV. I wanted to make sure I left a little bit of my own mishap there for posterity.”
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