{"id":4794,"date":"2022-11-16T12:35:25","date_gmt":"2022-11-16T17:35:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magazine.alumni.ncsu.edu\/?p=2484"},"modified":"2024-02-01T16:23:26","modified_gmt":"2024-02-01T21:23:26","slug":"now-youre-talking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/2022\/now-youre-talking\/","title":{"rendered":"Now You\u2019re Talking"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Jack Daly \u201901<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The road that led Amanda Busick \u201908 to sports broadcasting is much longer than the quarter-mile dragstrips from which she now reports for the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After graduating with a business degree, Busick\u2019s career plans evaporated amid the global financial crisis. With nothing to lose, Busick moved to New York to see if she could find a broadcasting job. TV was Busick\u2019s first passion; she grew up in Greensboro, N.C., watching morning weather reports that she then repeated to her mother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After relocating, Busick experienced many of the twists and turns associated with media careers. She initially supported herself by working at a steakhouse\u2009\u2014\u2009Del Frisco\u2019s\u2009\u2014\u2009before leveraging connections to catch on at an agency that represented sports broadcasters. That led to her landing as a production assistant at the upstart Campus Insiders network in Chicago in 2012 before another financial crisis struck closer to home. Her mother had to move in with her; Busick left broadcasting for a more stable income in sales in the meat industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Busick\u2019s gift for connecting with people not only opened doors in television, but it also contributed to growing her territory 100% in the first eight months selling Italian sausages. Her strategy was talking with clients about sports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Serendipity struck when Busick heard from an old friend from Del Frisco\u2019s. It was 2015, and the NHRA was moving from ESPN to Fox Sports. The network had openings for prime positions on the broadcast. Was Busick interested?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was hesitant to even take the first meeting with the executive producer,\u201d Busick says. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of a heartbreaking path in pursuit of your dream sometimes. But the 30-minute conversation I was supposed to have with the executive producer turned into two hours.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou can smell it, taste it, hear it, feel it\u2009\u2014\u200910,000 horsepower per car just rocketing through your body.\u201d \u2014Amanda Busick \u201908<\/p><\/div><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

She flew herself to Dallas to watch a race and was hooked. \u201cIt is a sensory overload of a sport,\u201d she says. \u201cYou can smell it, taste it, hear it, feel it\u2009\u2014\u200910,000 horsepower per car just rocketing through your body.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some six years later, Busick thinks she has the best job in sports. \u201cAfter two cars that go 330 mph down a drag strip and turn off, I am the first person they see. So you can imagine the intensity of moments you can have in that place, from defeat to pure joy and glory. \u201cI get to see it all.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false,"raw":"\n\n\n\n\n

By Jack Daly \u201901<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The road that led Amanda Busick \u201908 to sports broadcasting is much longer than the quarter-mile dragstrips from which she now reports for the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After graduating with a business degree, Busick\u2019s career plans evaporated amid the global financial crisis. With nothing to lose, Busick moved to New York to see if she could find a broadcasting job. TV was Busick\u2019s first passion; she grew up in Greensboro, N.C., watching morning weather reports that she then repeated to her mother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After relocating, Busick experienced many of the twists and turns associated with media careers. She initially supported herself by working at a steakhouse\u2009\u2014\u2009Del Frisco\u2019s\u2009\u2014\u2009before leveraging connections to catch on at an agency that represented sports broadcasters. That led to her landing as a production assistant at the upstart Campus Insiders network in Chicago in 2012 before another financial crisis struck closer to home. Her mother had to move in with her; Busick left broadcasting for a more stable income in sales in the meat industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Busick\u2019s gift for connecting with people not only opened doors in television, but it also contributed to growing her territory 100% in the first eight months selling Italian sausages. Her strategy was talking with clients about sports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Serendipity struck when Busick heard from an old friend from Del Frisco\u2019s. It was 2015, and the NHRA was moving from ESPN to Fox Sports. The network had openings for prime positions on the broadcast. Was Busick interested?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was hesitant to even take the first meeting with the executive producer,\u201d Busick says. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of a heartbreaking path in pursuit of your dream sometimes. But the 30-minute conversation I was supposed to have with the executive producer turned into two hours.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou can smell it, taste it, hear it, feel it\u2009\u2014\u200910,000 horsepower per car just rocketing through your body.\u201d \u2014Amanda Busick \u201908<\/p><\/div><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

She flew herself to Dallas to watch a race and was hooked. \u201cIt is a sensory overload of a sport,\u201d she says. \u201cYou can smell it, taste it, hear it, feel it\u2009\u2014\u200910,000 horsepower per car just rocketing through your body.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some six years later, Busick thinks she has the best job in sports. \u201cAfter two cars that go 330 mph down a drag strip and turn off, I am the first person they see. So you can imagine the intensity of moments you can have in that place, from defeat to pure joy and glory. \u201cI get to see it all.\u201d<\/p>\n"},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Knowing how to speak sports has taken Amanda Busick \u201908 to reporting on the dragway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2490,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"views\/single-immersive.blade.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"source":"","ncst_custom_author":"","ncst_show_custom_author":false,"ncst_dynamicHeaderBlockName":"ncst\/default-immersive-post-header","ncst_dynamicHeaderData":"{\"showAuthor\":true,\"showDate\":true,\"showFeaturedVideo\":false,\"backgroundColor\":\"gray_800\",\"subtitle\":\"Knowing how to speak sports has taken Amanda Busick \u201908 to reporting on the dragway.\",\"displayCategoryID\":5,\"caption\":\"Photographs courtesy of Amanda Busick \u201908.\"}","ncst_content_audit_freq":"","ncst_content_audit_date":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[67,444,557,853,887],"_ncst_magazine_issue":[],"class_list":["post-4794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories","tag-amanda-busick","tag-fox-sports","tag-jack-daly","tag-national-hot-rod-association","tag-nhra"],"displayCategory":{"term_id":5,"name":"Best Bets","slug":"best-bets","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":5,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":53,"filter":"raw"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4794"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4794"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5017,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4794\/revisions\/5017"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4794"},{"taxonomy":"_ncst_magazine_issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_ncst_magazine_issue?post=4794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}