About Me: Kramer Sansone

Why I chose to pursue a career in sports media started at a young age where sports pulled me in. At age seven is when I realized I wanted to get involved doing something in sports. I played video games as a child and one of the first games I played was Madden 2003. I would put the tv on mute and acted like I was the play-by-play commentator at a very young age. There were other instances where I would play basketball and baseball in my room and write stats down acting like I was switching between players. I would conduct a tv version where I would do a pregame, halftime and postgame show. How I played baseball was by using a skinny wood stick and blew up a balloon. My room was positioned to where there was space to move around and field. I would hit the balloon then try to catch it and throw it to first base which was a sheet of paper on a wall. If I were to hit the paper that batter was out. As a child, your mind has endless possibilities and imaginations. 

Doing all of this as a child, I knew I had to do something if my professional baseball career did not pan out the way I wanted it to. 
   

When I transferred to Northwest Missouri State University, I did not realize how soon I could get involved by getting into the radio class or even working for the NPR station on campus. When I got hired by the NPR station, they saw potential in me and that’s when the fire inside myself to make it grew larger. With the radio class, I was able to call all the baseball games for Northwest and it was on the radio in Maryville where I received text messages from people saying, “hey that’s you on the radio” or “you sounded awesome man.” 

    At the NPR station, my first job was an engineer and board operator for Bearcat Radio Network where I worked football and basketball games. This gave me my first experience of behind the scenes action of radio where my job was to play underwriters. After my first-year engineering, I was awarded a scholarship to become the head engineer and produce for all sports broadcasts including our coaches show. I was hired at the NRP station to also become an on-air personality, board operator and news anchor. Everything I have done at the NPR station has shaped me to become a better broadcaster.
 

  More with the radio class, I was selected to be the Assistant Sports Director and the Sports Director where I oversaw the entire sports department of KZLX Lp Maryville. The 2019 Division II Central Regional tournament was held in Maryville, Missouri where x106 sports had the opportunity to call all seven games and that included the Central Regional Championship for teams to make it to the elite eight of the National Tournament. Experiencing all of the runnings around throughout games going to press conference and reporting everything on air later has given me a deep appreciation of the behind the scenes work that not many people know. 

    Perusing a sports media degree means a lot of hard work and I have put myself in situations to do the hard work and overachieve at doing so. 

    I know getting into the business is hard, but I have taken the steps to get there by taking the classes I need or taking classes I don’t need but will still help a broadcasting career out as a sports psychology class. 

    I work for KMA Broadcasting in Shenandoah, Iowa as a freelance reporter. I wanted to better my reporting and social media skills. I would travel to high school football and basketball games and tweet out scores and notable updates throughout the game. At the game, the station would call me to do a live on-air report. After games, I would talk and take pictures of the athletes and send an audio version of my story of the game back to the station.