Milan Revels is the sole broadcaster at Michigan Interscholastic Press Association’s (MIPA) 2014 summer workshop who traveled over 780 miles to attend. The senior at Lakeview Academy is originally from Detroit but has lived just outside of Atlanta, GA in Johns Creek since the age of 5.
Revels returns to Michigan every summer and stays with her Nana in Southfield, which is a suburb on the outskirts of Detroit.
She found out about MIPA from a family friend who works for the University of Michigan. Revels had the opportunity to choose between Indiana University and Princeton for similar broadcasting camps, but decided to come to Michigan State University because she wants to become a Spartan in the fall.
“I did not attend the Georgia Scholastic Press Association camp because I don’t want to stay in Georgia,” Revels said. “I want to go to college out of state, so I’m trying to stay as far away as possible. I don’t want to get attached to the school, end up liking it, and staying.”
Registering solo for a camp almost 800 miles from home may seem like a daunting idea to some, but Revels said she connected with her roommate, Alex Rakowski, who is native to Muskegon, MI, on Facebook and chatted the week prior to coming to camp.
Revels is aspiring to be a sports caster and is enrolled in the class Smile, You’re On Camera taught by Jesse Sutherland, a Spartan alumna. The class is designed to push the students outside of their comfort zones and make them more independent to prepare them for the world of broadcasting.
In addition to being a competitive cheerleader in fifth grade, Revels had always enjoyed being in front of the camera then. Combine that with her athleticism from cheer, softball and basketball and watching sportscasters, such as Robin Roberts, and the result is an intense passion for broadcasting.
“Robin Roberts really inspired me. Especially because she comes from the south, she’s black and she was one of the first black major sports anchors,” said Revels. “I always really looked up to her and now that I have all these opportunities, I try to take advantage of them. That’s why I really want to do it.”
Opportunities indeed. Revels is a paid intern at the radio station WDUN 550 AM in Gainesville, GA. She sits in on the segment “Game On” with host Katie B. Davis to comment on all things sports.
“I’m not biased towards one sport,” said Revels. “I like all of them and know about all of them.”
The major network that Revels hopes to work for one day is Fox Sports. She wants to be employed at Fox Sports because there are so many locations, such as Atlanta and Detroit.
Earlier in the week, the class Skyped with Ryan Field, who is originally from Troy, MI, but is now a sports anchor in Los Angeles. The class also visited WILX10, which is the local news station in East Lansing. They were able to sit in on a news cast and met the anchor, Lauren Evans. The aspiring broadcasters were exposed to how a news cast is run.
Revels said she understands that the world of broadcasting and journalism is a hard one, but is not phased at all.
“It’s hard, but you can’t get discouraged,” said Revels. “You have to get your foot in the door. You have to really try. You have to really push and not give up. It is a hard thing to get into and to get big gigs, but you’ve got keep trying. You can’t give up.”
Leave a Reply