Diego Santiago
I was a regular 19-year-old student at Pierce College with goals, dreams and desires like any other man my age, until suddenly my life took an unexpected turn.
About a year ago, ESPN Deportes, which is a subsidiary channel for the worldwide-known sports channel ESPN, announced that auditions for the reality show “Dream Job: El Reportero” (The Reporter) would take place in six different cities across America.
The show would test the skills, knowledge and personalities of six contestants who would have the chance to become a member of the ESPN team and be a reporter during the 2006 World Cup in Germany.
At that time, I was a business major and an aspiring airline pilot, but I was also very interested in soccer analysis, even though I considered more a hobby.
So when I heard that auditions were coming to Los Angeles around March, I was not that euphoric about it.
But I decided to give it a shot, mostly for the experience. So, I missed my anthropology class and went to the audition.
When I got there, I realized that about 90 percent of the contestants were wearing suits. My casual wear had betrayed me.
Still, after a series of questions and interviews, I survived the first round of the audition and made it as a finalist.
About 10 people had made it this far, but only one could win and represent Los Angeles.
When I told my parents about my audition, they were extremely proud of me to have made it to the finals. Still, neither myself nor my parents’ hopes were extremely high for me to win.
Eventually, hours later, around 3 p.m., the final interviews were set. As nervous as I was, I tried to keep my calm. My interview only lasted about 15 minutes, even though for me it felt like an eternity. At the end, they told me that if I had won, I would receive a call from them, if not….. Well, thanks for participating.
I went through my week as normally as I could, never expecting to get a call from ESPN.
That all changed the following Friday around 5 p.m. I was headed out to play soccer with my team, when all of the sudden the phone rang.
On the Caller ID it showed ESPN.
The next morning, I was on a plane to Mexico City, with all expenses paid, to watch a soccer game, interview players and create a 90-second clip for the show.
The scenery was amazing and my seat couldn’t get any better. I was on ground level about five feet behind the goal. It was an incredible experience that I will never forget.
The grass looked greener, the ball seemed shiner and even the players’ foul mouths were music to my ears.
After the game, I had to run onto the field to grab a player and get an interview, just like in real life. After all the footage was collected, I edited my clip in ESPN Deportes’s headquarters and part of my interview was used for Sportscenter that same day.
My stay in Mexico City only lasted about a day and a half. But two weeks later I was packing my stuff again, this time headed to Bristol, Conn. to the main headquarters of the company.
Now it was the time to compete against five other people from Miami, New York, Chicago, Houston and Mexico City.
I was the youngest contestant at 19 years old. But all of us were competing for one goal… to be the newest reporter to join ESPN’s family and to go to the World Cup.
It took about four days to film a 90-minute show. From the planning, to the rehearsal, to the actual shooting, everything was carefully done.
First, the judges would carefully critique the 90-second clip that every contestant had to edit in Mexico City. Second, we had to answer a 30-second live, on-the-spot answer to a sports-related question.
Unfortunately, the excellent news I dreamed of never came.
The contestant from Mexico City won fairly and I would be lying to you if I said that I was not greatly disappointed.
People back home would say, “Diego you did great, you made it incredibly far.” But not many people experience that feeling of getting so close to something so big, yet fall short.
Now that I look back, I can see that my failure made me a greater person. Yes, I would have loved to be a reporter overseas, but maybe I could have become arrogant or demanding.
I am a changed person since then. Many people think that my greatest experience was to be on a T.V. show and interview players.
But I think that the greatest experience I learned was that life swings at you from different sides.
One day you’re down, next day you’re extremely up and finally you end up back down.
You have to work hard to reach your goal. That’s the only way to make things better.
Just because I was on the show, does not mean I can’t learn more about any topic. In fact, now that I’ve experienced extremely tough competition, I try to better myself everyday.
Since then, I have never looked back.
I am now a journalism major, hoping to one day become a reporter for a T.V. station. I am now 20 years old and working harder than ever.
But as you all know…The show must go on.
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