ASU professor earns nationwide respect from the industry

After working a full week as a professor and senior broadcast engineer at Arizona State University, Jim Dove doesn’t go home to start his weekend.

He goes to work — his other work.

Dove, one of the country’s leading video editors, has worked for ASU since 1984, with the past 10 years in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. He has worked for ESPN since 1986, and has also covered sports for several other networks. He travels around the country each weekend to cover sports including professional and college football, baseball and basketball, often putting in 12- to 18-hour days on Saturday and Sunday.

Dove brings his professional expertise to his teaching, and has also opened doors for current leaders in the sports broadcasting industry. Products of Dove’s instruction range from high school students — such as those in a summer program this month — to award-winning directors and producers around the country.

Dan Bubany, an Arizona native who won national recognition for sports reporting while at ASU and is sports director for KPLC-TV in Lake Charles, La., met Dove in the summer institute for high school students. Later, as Dove’s student, Bubany valued his skills as a professional and teacher.

"Jim is incredibly talented, and what’s more important for someone in his position, incredibly patient,’’ Bubany said. "Broadcasting is really like a fraternity. It never hurts to drop a name, and Jim Dove’s is a good one.’’

Dove, a self-professed sports nut, knows little things that only come from experience — how to pull compelling clips on the fly, how to simultaneously watch incoming feed and prepare gripping sequences, or the producer who hates shots of the moon during a night broadcast. He is happy to pass on the same opportunities he got when he started in the industry.

"It’s all about getting to meet people,’’ he said. He describes ESPN and ASU as "tight-knit families’’ to which he is proud to belong.

"It’s a big market to be working out of college in, but getting experience on small shows really helps. From an experience standpoint, they’re all the same — you have to react quickly and all the basics have to be there.’’

He has seen sports broadcasting change since he began his career more than 20 years ago, both in the number of sports covered and the technology used — and he has been at the forefront all along.

"Just throw a sport out there, no matter how obscure. I’ve probably covered it,’’ he said.

When Live Slow Motion, a disk-based video editing system that has revolutionized the way sports are covered and presented, came to the United States, Dove was one of the first two operators to learn and use it.

But some of Dove’s favorite perks are the students he meets years after they leave ASU.

"I have heard ESPN called ‘ASU North’ because of all the graduates,’’ said S. Don Cordona, a producer for ESPN Deportes, which covers sports in Spanish.

Cordona got his break and his introduction to production when Dove asked him to help at ESPN’s Miami vs. ASU football show.

"He didn’t have to ask me twice,’’ Cordona said.

Ian Gruca, Emmy Award winner and graphics producer for ABC’s Monday Night Football, got his first job through an ABC contact he met through Dove’s class. He said he is constantly shocked by how many people know and respect Dove.

"We’re known here as ‘Jim Dove products’ — and that is a very good thing,’’ said Brooke Stelzer, a production assistant at ESPN who met several contacts at ESPN and Fox Sports through Dove.

Dove won an Emmy in 1989 for ESPN’s "Speedworld’’ and has received several other awards through ASU and his work in sports broadcasting. But some of his strongest endorsements come from students-turned-colleagues.

"You can step in any truck, in any city, covering any sport and mention Jim Dove’s name, and everyone has a story to tell or a connection to him somehow,’’ said Rene Hatlelid, an ESPN production assistant and "Jim Dove product.’’