New Canaan’s Nicholas leads ESPN KidsCast
Ian Nicholas moved into his freshmen dorm at Syracuse University Thursday morning like thousands of other students, set to embark on his college career.
Unlike any other freshman decorating their new rooms and saying goodbye to their parents, Nicholas was arriving on campus immediately following the culmination of a lifetime dream.
Nicholas, a 2021 New Canaan graduate, was chosen as one of four young broadcasters to take part in the ESPN KidsCast of both a Little League World Series game and the Cleveland-Los Angeles Angels Sunday Night Baseball MLB Little League Classic on ESPN2.
Not only did Nicholas get to do play-by-play for the games, he and the rest of the crew were able to conduct live interviews with former New York Yankees star Alex Rodriguez (now a part of ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball broadcast team), the new face of Major League Baseball in Shohei Ohtani, Angels manager Joe Maddon and MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, among others.
It was a whirlwind arriving in Williamsport the Thursday before the game and leaving after the Ore
gon vs. New Hampshire Little League game Tuesday night.
“I was living my dream,” Nicholas said. “All the interviews were wild but meeting A-Rod for me was the best. I met him in the green room before the game, then he came over and sat with us live on air for an inning during the Sunday night game. I was mesmerized. I am a Yankee fan, so that was great but seeing him in person, you realize how big he is. My favorite moment was getting personal with A-Rod. One thing I mentioned to him was how he made his MLB debut at 18 and I was making my MLB broadcasting debut at 18.”
Nicholas was chosen for the job after standing out at the Bruce Beck Sports Broadcasting Camp earlier in the summer.
It was two years ago that Aiden Blanc of Fairfield earned the same honor after attending the camp. Blanc was able to join a crew to call a Little League game on ESPN2 that year.
That broadcast was so well received that ESPN added the KidsCast to its Sunday Night Baseball coverage this year, giving Nicholas and his partners a chance to shine on a national stage calling a MLB game.
“I know how hard people have to work to get opportunities to call Major League Baseball games and I know how special this opportunity was for us. It is something I would never take for granted,” Nicholas said. “One of the really great parts was meeting and talking to the ESPN people during the week. I got to talk to Tim Kurkjian, Karl Ravech, Jessica Mendoza and so many others who work on the broadcasts. They knew why we were there and how special it was. They made us feel at home and were willing to share advice.”
Nicholas attended the Beck camp in 2019 and then the last two summers over Zoom as the COVD-19 pandemic did not allow them to congregate in person
Fellow KidsCast members Zoe Alter and Hayley Galindo also were picked after attending the Beck camp.
Nicholas found out a couple weeks after camp he had been chosen to go to Williamsport. He immediately got to work researching everything he could about the Angels and Cleveland.
Along with the thrill of interviewing Rodriguez, Nicholas said the highlights were conducting the first ever in-game FaceTime interviews with MLB players and coaches.
At one point while interviewing Ohtani via FaceTime, Alter asked Ohtani what games he has on his phone. Ohtani replied, “I play a game called Clash Royale every day.”
“Then I said ‘oh yeah I had that game on my phone as a kid’ which made everyone laugh because I’m only 18 and I’m saying that to an adult. What I thought was great was that Zoe asked that question because it’s not something an adult would ever ask another adult in an interview,” Nicholas said. “Another great moment was doing a FaceTime interview with Joe Maddon and realizing he didn’t really know how to use FaceTime. We got him to turn his camera around to show us his perspective of the field but then he couldn’t turn the camera back on himself. I certainly wasn’t going to start explaining to Joe Maddon how to use FaceTime live on ESPN.”
Nicholas grew up in Norwalk, but attended St. Aloysius School in New Canaan which allowed him to play youth football in New Canaan.
He loved his teammates and wanted to be a part of New Canaan High football so much that his family moved to New Canaan in eighth grade.
At New Canaan High, Nicholas discovered the NCTV78 broadcasting program and signed up.
In that program he learned how to make graphics, run production and eventually was able to move up to being an on-air talent.
Nicholas was so good at broadcasting that sophomore year he was asked if he would like to join the on-air team for football games.
One problem, Nicholas was on the football team and his family had moved just two years earlier for that reason.
Nicholas talked to New Canaan football coach Lou Marinelli and told him he wanted to pursue broadcasting though that meant he would have to quit football.
It turned out to be the right choice and Nicholas realizes he would never have made it to Syracuse as a football player, but he did as a broadcasting student.
“I’m at Syracuse and there are so many talented kids here, but very few of them had the platform I did at NCTV78,” Nicholas said. “I got to do live streams of so many games and I am so grateful for NCTV78 for the opportunity to do that. I signed up originally because I loved talking about sports and New Canaan gave me a huge opportunity to get involved in all aspects of the production.”
While the pandemic negatively impacted high school sports, it provided Nicholas with an incredible opportunity.
First, during lockdown with no sports being played, Nicholas began doing interviews over Zoom with not only New Canaan athletes and coaches, but also with national broadcasters like Kenny Albert and others.
Once sports returned, few if any fans were allowed at games providing Nicholas and the NCTV78 team with more eyes on their live streaming broadcasts.
From field hockey to basketball, if there was a sport being played at New Canaan, he was announcing it.
People were noticing Nicholas, with parents from opposing schools often tweeting at him after games how impressed they were with the professionalism of the broadcasts.
“That time was invaluable. It made me grow so much as a broadcaster and improve as an interviewer which is something I had not done before,” Nicholas said. “It was not fun having no fans at games. I really missed feeding off the energy of the crowd. But I got to call so many games in the fall and winter and we had so many more people watching because nobody could go in person. It felt nice to get so much positive feedback from those broadcasts. It was obviously a terrible year for so many reasons, but it was the best year for me as a broadcaster. The town of New Canaan has a special place in my heart and I am so grateful I got that opportunity.”
Nicholas is hoping to soon broadcast Syracuse events and have a long career following his dreams of being on the air.
For now, he is just trying to find the dining hall and the building where his first class will be.