Missy Rosenberry: East-side grads interning for the Olympics
What's better than watching the Sochi Winter Olympic Games on TV? Being there.
What's better than being there? Getting to work side-by-side with athletes and media personalities from all around the world.
That's the enviable position in which several east-side high school grads find themselves when they travel to Sochi, Russia, this month as NBC interns for the Winter Olympics.
Lauren Mazzo (Webster Thomas 2011), Leah Doerner (Webster Schroeder 2011), Brittany Romano (Penfield High 2011) and Chris Carpenter (Fairport High 2011), all studying at Ithaca College's Roy H. Park School of Communications, are among 22 students from the college chosen by NBC to serve as interns during the 18-day-long event. They were selected from about 200 applicants at Ithaca.
They left town last Saturday (Jan. 25) on a 10-hour NBC-chartered plane ride to Sochi, a sprawling city along the Black Sea on Russia's southwest coast.
With its white-sand beaches, deep blue waters and subtropical climate, Sochi is a popular resort town that's become known as the "Russian Riviera."
The students' hotel is right on the beach. Just 15 minutes to the north lay the Caucasus Mountains and the area called the "mountain cluster," where the games' skiing events will be held. Lauren Mazzo has been assigned to the Iceberg Skating Palace figure skating arena, located in the "coastal cluster," where she'll work as a runner.
Before she left, she didn't know for sure what the job of runner would involve. "(NBC) told us we could be doing anything," Lauren said, "like getting coffee, shoveling mud, escorting athletes, researching package topics, or transcribing interviews." They also warned her that she might be pulling 12-hour shifts.
So there probably won't be a whole lot of free time to hit the beach. But she does hope to have a chance to check out the city of Sochi. Since no one there speaks any English, that should be quite an experience.
"It's so unlike all the past Olympics in recent years," Lauren said. "There's no place to wander around and hang out. They're not prepared for a lot of international tourists."
The interns also might be able to attend some of the Olympic events. NBC will be raffling off event tickets for their staff members, so even going to the opening and closing ceremonies isn't completely out of the question.
That would be way cool.
So what if she has to shovel mud? Lauren's happy to do it. Because traveling to Russia to work as an intern for a major network during the Winter Olympics is an experience that's pretty much a dream come true for any young journalist.
"Just being part of the Olympics, it's such a legendary thing," Lauren said. "It's not just about the U.S., not just about the journalism, it's a huge event that spans so many years and so many countries. I get to be a part of that, it's just amazing."
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Our kids in Sochi
Chris Carpenter also will be a runner for NBC at the Olympics, working in the Shayba Arena, where many of the ice hockey games will be played. Brittany Romano and Leah Doerner will be working in the International Broadcast Center. Watch for them (they might be running) and their work at the XXII Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic Games, Feb. 7-23 on NBC.