he began trading hockey highlight films when the Rochester Amerks played in Binghamton, with then Rochester TV sports director Doug Emblidge.
That friendship eventually led to Mike being offered the weekend sports desk at 13 WHAM-TV in 1989. He was eventually offered the plum job as Sports Director at age 26, when Emblidge moved over to news. In December, Mike will have chalked up 27 years with the local ABC affiliate.
Back in the early days, the plan for a sportscaster was to put experience under their belt and hopefully move on to network posts, or a larger market such as New York or Chicago. As it worked out Mike not only had a love affair with sports, but planted his feet solidly in the Rochester market. After raising his two daughters, Mike, now a Park Avenue area resident, has developed a full career around sports.
Besides his 13WHAM sportscaster job, Mike also does the pre-season play-by-play for the Buffalo Bills games; 13 Amerks hockey games for Time Warner cable; a post-game show with Channel 7 in Buffalo following the Bills games, and a local roundtable talk show in Rochester.
Mike recalled his Catholic High School days playing basketball and golf. “Back then we had six sports, now they probably have twenty, referring to the expansion of high school sports over the years.
So, why sports, why not the news desk? “I love sports, everything about it. The different aspects to sports,” admitted Catalana. Over the past decades the role of the sportscaster has changed dramatically. New jobs in sports coverage have emerged, jobs that simple did not exist in the past. Mike recalled a time before ESPN, the internet and a host of cable offerings in sports.
According to Mike, becoming a sports junkie in today’s world, encompasses the training and flexibility to write, edit, perhaps shoot your own pictures, or video and produce web content – besides the online presence. “There is very little you do not need to know, to do.”
As for the college experience, Mike admits he learned more on the job in the first six months than he did in his years in school. The real world is where a sportscaster earns his/her stripes.
Mike, along with his two other team members picked the Jets over Buffalo last week. After Buffalo trounced the Jets, in retrospect, Mike defended his pick. “The Bills never won in the Meadowlands (Jets’ home field). The Bills came off a poorly executed game against Minnesota and the Jets played well against New England.”
At the beginning of the football season, Mike picked Buffalo to go 7 and 9. “Now I would be stunned if they only had 8 wins. We will know more about this team over the next month (the easy part of the second half of the season), before Buffalo hits the buzz saw of top quarterbacks in the home stretch. We will know if the Bills are a contender, or not (for a playoff birth)”
As for the Bills quarterback situation, Catalana said he would not be surprised to see Buffalo pick a young QB in the second, or third draft and also tossed out the name of Kirk Cousins (onetime starting quarterback of your Washington Redskins) as a possible addition. At the same time, having Buffalo hold on to Kyle Orton in the building years and hoping EJ Manuel will eventually find his way.
For the Bills new owner, Terry Pegula, the 13WHAM-TV sports director was impressed. “I’ve met him before and find him interesting. He is not what a lot of people would picture as a multi-billionaire owner of two sports franchises (the Bills and the Buffalo Sabers hockey team, as well as the Rochester Amerks). He is a very unassuming guy.”
As for last week’s Aquinas controversy, Mike said he knows rules are rules, but feels that disqualifying Aquinas for a questionable ineligible player was unnecessary.
Mike added he loves the fact that the station and staff give him the opportunity to expose the “positive light” of kids in high school athletes. As the sports director, Mike also has to fend off criticism that his staff does not always cover every aspect of sports a viewer would like to see. On the other hand, he added people have no idea the work that goes on behind the scenes to present a synopsis of sports in a few minutes.
The Times of Wayne County is a news partner with 13WHAM-TV and combine our services to give Wayne County
residents the best in news coverage.
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So, you want to be a Sportscaster…
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