After Butler's success, Minner's career choice looks like a winner
Mark Minner was prepared to violate one of the basic rules of sports journalism during the NCAA men's basketball championship game.
Minner was sitting at midcourt at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis to help capture the magical moments of Butler's battle with Duke.
But Minner wasn't thinking about objectivity as he hoped Gordon Hayward's half-court prayer would be answered at the buzzer and produce one of the most shocking endings and surprising champions in NCAA history.
After all, the Barrington graduate is also a sophomore student at Butler.
"There was no doubt in my mind I was focused as a student at that moment," said Minner, who played baseball at Barrington and was the starting second baseman as a senior. "All professional behavior was going to go out the window at that moment."
It nearly did as Hayward's shot bounced off the window and the rim before falling to the floor. And then Minner morphed into his professional capacity as a television reporter chronicling Butler's amazing run for the school's sports show "Bulldog Blitz."
Minner also helped produce the show available to nearly a million potential Comcast cable viewers in Indiana. Minner's work can also be seen on YouTube.
And he did his best to balance, in this case "no cheering in the press room," with pulling for coaches and players he got to know well at a small, tight-knit school.
"It was certainly a fine line," Minner said. "We were all doing this for the first time. How you react and could you be a homer was a real question.
"It was tough to sit in the media session where you're supposed to be contained (after the national semifinal win over Michigan State) because part of you gets so excited. It's tough to focus on the job sitting there as a sophomore student with something as big as this."
Make no mistake, this is not just some lark to get a closer look at some big games. It's all part of Minner's hopes of making it big in sports broadcasting, which has been a goal since he was doing TV work at Barrington.
And Minner went from being one of the few media members there at the beginning of Butler's season to being in the same line for food with big-time basketball media types such as Dick Vitale, Jay Bilas and Bill Raftery.
The best part was they didn't big-time the kid.
"They would talk to you and were very casual," Minner said. "It makes you feel like you've accomplished a lot to this point."
And Minner definitely has in his first two years at Butler. He's done television play-by-play of women's basketball and volleyball and the Horizon League men's soccer championship.
Minner is hoping to possibly do some work on the men's basketball broadcasts next year. Through his mentor, FOX-32 sports anchor Corey McPherrin, Minner will be doing his second summer of a radio broadcasting internship with the Kane County Cougars.
Minner did some analysis and was given the chance to do a couple innings of play-by-play each game by lead announcer Jeff Hem.
"It's a whole different ballgame, doing baseball on the radio," Minner said. "There's a lot of dead air and you have to be able to fill that and be more descriptive on radio."
Play-by-play and baseball look as if they would be a perfect future match for Minner. Not many people will be able to pull out a resume that includes covering a team's run to a national championship game.
And Minner's part in Butler's ride reaffirmed his commitment to a broadcasting career and the work he needs to do to get there.
"There are days where it's an editing day or you're covering softball and it's 20 degrees and cold and nobody is here watching, but I know this is what I want to do be doing with my time right now," Minner said. "Then there are days like that Monday at Lucas Oil Stadium where you're walking around with all of the great people in the industry and watching Butler play for the national championship.
"It's hard to describe in words."
That looks like something Mark Minner will be doing for a long time."
mmaciaszek@dailyherald.com