In November, Kailey Townsend posted a photo of herself at the student radio station WHUS to the UConn Instagram account.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nAt WHUS, UConn’s student radio station where she is now operations manager, she has crafted her knack for public speaking and covering live events. \u201cSo when it comes to sports,\u201d she says, \u201cI know hockey, I know how I can explain this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Townsend\u2019s cheat sheets \u2013 filled with the names and numbers of the players, and technical ice hockey terms \u2013 are scattered across the small space in front of her, most of the table being otherwise occupied by switchboards, headsets, and other devices. Someone slips her a list of season statistics to add to the details that she can provide her listeners.<\/p>\n
\u201cI need to know how to be more descriptive in the moment,\u201d says Townsend. \u201cPeople can\u2019t see what you\u2019re looking at, so you have to be the eyes for their ears.\u201d<\/p>\n
She is consulting her cheat sheets before the game begins, reading a name and number on the list and looking up to match them to each woman practicing on the ice. She records the names and numbers of the visiting team, too, as each of their players skates by.<\/p>\n
Even though Division I sports like basketball and football tend to cultivate the largest fan bases, Townsend feels strongly that this is the sport she wants to be covering. \u201cIt\u2019s the empowerment,” she says. “In such a masculine sport, it\u2019s awesome to support women\u2019s part in it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Once the clock starts running, Townsend pops on her headgear and jumps right in to the commentary, effortlessly maneuvering between watching the puck and consulting her cheat sheets, never missing a moment of action or fumbling over her words.<\/p>\n
The noise of the stadium completely washes out Townsend\u2019s voice. Someone sitting next to her would have difficulty making out what she says. So to those around her at the media table, Townsend\u2019s communication is limited to an occasional \u201cthumbs up.\u201d<\/p>\n
She recognizes the valuable role she plays in this connection between fans and their favorite team, and says her goal moving forward is to gain a more professional footing. \u201cI listen to the commentary for the men\u2019s basketball games and think \u2018How can I get on that level?\u2019\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Townsend plans to train for the upcoming semester by listening to other play-by-play commentators in hopes of polishing her work.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt takes a lot of skill,” she says. “I still feel like I\u2019m in the baby stages.\u201d<\/p>\n
See Townsend’s Instagram takeover: https:\/\/storify.com\/uconn\/explore-kailey-townsend-s-instagram-takeover<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Play-by-play commentary by Kailey Townsend ’18 (CLAS), available through a subscription, is broadcast to UConn fans and athletes\u2019 family members when they can\u2019t be in the stands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":120112,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1712,2225,2234],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[117],"class_list":["post-120028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-athletics","category-uconn-storrs","category-university-life"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-07 04:41:13","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120028"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120028\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":122283,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120028\/revisions\/122283"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/120112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120028"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=120028"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=120028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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