#MediaMonday – Tim Ring
I knew there was something about KTVK sports director Tim Ring I liked.
Turns out, his dad (like mine) went to #NotreDame. GO IRISH!
His story, which culminates on the broadcast side in him joining KTVK 3TV in 2009, is a great one.
Very happy to have him as our #MediaMonday today so he can share it.
So, Tim, time to share! What do you want to tell the blogosphere about yourself today?
Like most kids, you can thank my father for my love affair with sports. In the 1960s my dad earned his doctorate at Notre Dame and would go on to become the dean of the School Education at DePaul University in Chicago. He was a rabid fan of Notre Dame football and DePaul Basketball and therefore, I was as well. Fall Saturdays were spent on the Indiana Toll Road driving to see the Irish. Winter nights were spent in the gym watching the Blue Demons. In addition to that, you had the Bears, Cubs, Bulls and Blackhawks. For a kid growing up, that was a pretty full sports plate.
I ended up going to college at DePaul and by the time I entered school in the fall of 1986, it was fairly well established I wouldn’t be playing sports for a living. This was bummer because I liked sports and really wanted to do something in sports.
But what?
I was advised that majoring in anything sports related was a waste of time and that the idea of going to college was to earn a degree that ultimately would earn you a living. So I listened, and majored in business for three years. In April of 1989, however, everything changed. I was in my apartment studying for an economics mid-term – hating every second of it. My roommates, meantime, were all heading to the Cubs-Dodgers game a couple miles away at Wrigley Field. Right there and there I had a life changing epiphany. I closed the book, went to the game with my friends, dropped all my classes, didn’t tell my parents, played pick-up basketball every day, drank beer every night and enrolled in the communications department beginning in September 1989.
A new life and career was born!
I was going to do something that I liked and that was that – although at this point I wasn’t quite sure exactly what it was I was going to do.
I started working in the publicity department in athletics which gave me a glimpse of life for people making a living in the sports world. It was okay but I didn’t really see myself becoming a sports information director (SID) or going down the road of athletic administration. By the time summer rolled around though, I got a call from DePaul’s SID. He informed me that WGN-TV Sports was looking for a summer intern and I should apply. I did and thankfully I ended up getting the gig. I later found out one of the reasons I got the internship over the dozens of other applicants was because I wore a suit to the interview.
I fell in love with the TV/Sports news business. It came naturally to me, and after a few short weeks I knew I never wanted to leave. So I didn’t.
The internship ended in the fall of 1989 but I just kept coming in to the station.
Every night.
For free.
I guess ‘insurance’ laws were different then because nobody told me I couldn’t come in. Eventually in January of 1990 one of WGN’s sports producers left and I was hired. I was 20 years old and producing the weekend sportscasts at WGN-TV in Chicago. That was pretty cool.
Anyway, four years went by and I knew that if I wanted to continue in this vocation, I had to be the guy in front of the camera, not the guy behind it. I think the reasons for that are pretty obvious but it came down to this, if you’re going to do the work, do it for yourself. Get out in front of that camera and do your thing. In March of 1994 I took a weekend sports anchor job in Wausau, Wisc.
From Wausau, I went to Green Bay. I arrived in “Titletown” in October of 1995. I was the sports director at the Fox affiliate. This was magical timing. Fox had secured the rights to the NFC in 1994 and by 1995, Brett Favre and the Packers were beginning their three-year run of NFC Championship Game, Super Bowl and another Super Bowl. Right spot at the right time. The experience I got during those three years was critical to my career.
In 1999 I took a job in Miami where I hosted Miami Heat and Florida Marlins pre and postgame shows on WAMI-TV. While in Miami I also met a news anchor named Fay Fredricks.
More on her in a second.
Moving along as many in the business are prone to do, I ended up moving to Denver in 2001 to head up the anchor desk at Fox Sports Rocky Mountain. Around that same time, Fay left Miami for Phoenix to work at KPNX-TV 12.
We stayed together despite being geographically challenged, and in 2005 we got married in Los Angeles and then returned to our separate cities. In 2007, we had twin boys – and then returned to our separate cities.
Finally in 2008 I packed my bags, left Denver and moved to Phoenix. I had no job and nothing cooking career-wise. I was there for my family but I’d be lying if I didn’t say it was all a little nerve-racking. Fortunately a few months later a job came open at 3TV, and in May of 2009 I began what’s been the most fulfilling stop in my long career.
I love the Valley. I love the teams. I love the people. Our family has grown. Those little twin boys will soon be nine years old and their sister will be five this December. Fay now works at ABC 15, and I now work for both 3TV and CBS 5 duopoly.
A career is built on hard work, talent and determination but also sometimes, you just have to be in the right place at the right time. And MOST importantly, whenever your friends are going to a baseball game, drop everything you’re doing and no matter what the consequences are, go with them.
Would love to connect on Twitter with you all on anything Valley or sports related.
