Photo courtesy Morgan Vance
There are times in life where a single experience can greatly impact the future, and for sports anchor Morgan Vance, it happened in the Hall of Flags.
“I ran into a buddy of mine and he asked me if I knew what I wanted to study,” said Vance. “I joked that someone that morning tried to convince me to pursue sports broadcasting, his eyes got real big. ‘Let me introduce you to some people,’ he said. I thought he was joking, until he asked me if I had 10 minutes. The rest was history.”
Vance then joined a broadcast team he described as talented and unique. However, they were not the only ones worthy of high praise.
“The Wolverines had just undergone a mad experiment, becoming the first school ever to leapfrog the junior college affiliation straight to mighty Division I,” said Vance. “A guy by the name of Ronnie Price would enter into the equation.”
As the university was rising to new heights academically, Price and the Wolverine basketball team were clawing their way onto the national scene, and Vance was there to call every minute of it.
“We had a little mentoring from various Communications professors at times, but overall I would say they gave us a work space, just enough equipment, and said, make it happen. And for the most part, we did,” Vance said of his time on campus.
The 2004-05 season was full of magical moments, as the Wolverines lost just one game at home and Price continued to sink shot after shot.
“It was Ronnie’s final season and he had risen up as high as third in the country in scoring,” said Vance. “We knew we had to tribute it somehow.”
Together, they decided that the tribute would be a mini-documentary capturing the best moments from Price’s career. The production, entitled “Priceless,” won an award at the Utah Film Festival.
After performing well behind the mic at UVU, Vance accepted a position in Joplin, Missouri, a city known for tornados and other weather disasters. He then made a stop in the Tri-Cities area in Washington before trekking back to the Beehive State.
Vance can now be seen almost everyday on Fox13 and credits his college days for helping become who he is today.
“The freedom and trust made us work harder and learn more from our mistakes and prepared me for what it takes to survive in the oftentimes brutal world of TV,” said Vance.
The man who looked up to figures such as Utah Jazz TV play-by-play voice Craig Bolerjack and ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt, now finds himself in a similar spot with a microphone close by.
