Amplifying Athletics

On Oct. 8, seniors Gianna Rosato and Jaiden Thakor released their first edition of Mic’d Up, an audio recording that reveals athletes’ commentary and perspective during games. As the two Commissioners of Athletics within the Associated Student Body (ASB), Rosato and Thakor work with the multitude of sports programs at Peninsula to ensure they are running smoothly. They both play sports that are less publicized, with Rosato on the girls varsity volleyball team and girls varsity soccer team and Thakor on the boys varsity water polo team; thus, the pair conceived the idea of Mic’d Up with a goal to highlight overlooked sports.

“[We] come from [sports] teams that do not get too much attention and have seen how hard these athletes have worked,” Thakor said. “Our [whole campaign] for Mic’d Up is to spread more love to the sports who often do not have the whole student body in attendance.”

After the plan was put into place, Rosato bought a “Rode Wireless Go” microphone, which is a cordless microphone system, and taught herself how to use it to capture the athletes’ commentary. Next, Rosato and Thakor started reaching out to athletes whom they believed would be good participants for the series. Within the first three months of the school year, six athletes from volleyball, song, cheer, football and tennis have been interviewed. Given that it is impossible to include water sports in the traditional sense, as the microphone is not waterproof and the sound would not come out clear underwater, Rosato and Thakor had to think creatively on how to include these sports. Thus, they interviewed the head coach of the boys varsity water polo team, overlaying his recorded audio onto footage that Thakor took using an underwater camera during one of his matches. This video aspect is a main feature of all Mic’d Up episodes; this footage is recorded by the commissioners on a Canon camera throughout the game, with the exception of water sports. Thakor later edits that footage to create a simplified, comedic compilation of the participant’s commentary. The final step in the process is posting the completed video onto their Instagram, @pvphs.athletics, for the public to view. 

 Rosato and Thakor took inspiration from the National Football League (NFL), who has been creating Mic’d Up videos since 1967. However, in the NFL, the coaches choose players to be recorded, whereas Rosato and Thakor reach out to players themselves to choose athletes they feel are good candidates. Additionally, they are conscious of which games they are choosing to record, as some games have higher stakes than others. 

“We try to choose good games that we know [the players] are not too stressed about so they will just be in their element,” Thakor said. “[Luckily,] we have had really good luck with people so far who have performed very well.” 

After receiving over 1,000 views on each post, individual athletes have had a chance to receive more recognition for their skill and dedication in their respective sports. On Oct. 27, senior Cydney Yamamoto was interviewed and recorded for Mic’d Up during her varsity tennis match against Culver City High School. Yamamoto enjoyed the experience overall, though she found it a bit difficult to balance staying focused on the game and making her commentary interesting. 

“It was a little more challenging to stay focused during my match [because of the microphone],” Yamamoto said. “I was excited [that I had this experience] though; it was something different and I have never done it before. At first I was so focused on being entertaining, but I eventually just got into the zone. I would definitely recommend other athletes to participate in Mic’d Up.”

Since Mic’d Up seems to be well-received, students can look forward to more videos to come in the future. Rosato and Thakor hope to continue highlighting all sports on campus and create a long-lasting tradition at Peninsula.

“Stepping into our role as Commissioners of Athletics, we really wanted to create [a new] tradition [to honor athletes],” Rosato said. “We are really excited to continue doing Mic’d Up this year and see who the commissioners for next year will be so we can show them the ropes and keep the tradition growing.”