{"id":62,"date":"2018-11-24T08:00:01","date_gmt":"2018-11-24T16:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/?p=999927685"},"modified":"2018-11-24T08:00:01","modified_gmt":"2018-11-24T16:00:01","slug":"rivera-l-a-kings-announcer-and-csulb-grad-achieves-and-wants-goals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/rivera-l-a-kings-announcer-and-csulb-grad-achieves-and-wants-goals","title":{"rendered":"CSULB grad becomes LA Kings announcer as ESPN reintroduces Spanish language play-by-play"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When Francisco X. Rivera decided to leave his native Mexico City and pursue a career in sports broadcasting, completing a liberal arts degree at Long Beach State was an important step in that process.<\/p>\n<p>The journey continues at Staples Center on Saturday, when the 36-year-old ascends to the press box to do Spanish-language play-by-play of the Kings\u2019 NHL game against Vancouver.<\/p>\n<p>It is the second of a 10-game experiment this season for the ESPN Deportes\u2019 KWKW-AM (1330) radio station as it re-introduces the language to pro hockey fans in Southern California after a 20-year absence.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a sport, by the way, that not only loses little in translation from English to Spanish, but as Rivera&#8217;s\u00a0initial, Nov. 1 broadcast shows, may actually benefit in the exchange.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Call of the Game: First LA Kings Goal on ESPN Deportes\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/BVwjqUJQ484?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Rivera explains how he has come to this place in his career and having Long Beach as an important pivot point:<\/p>\n<p><em>Long Beach Pos<\/em>t: Coming from Mexico City, with Spanish as your primary language, what made you want to pursue sports and broadcasting here?<\/p>\n<p><em>Rivera<\/em>: My goal was to be a professional soccer player and join MLS, and I saw how to get a college scholarship and get drafted was a way to do that. I spent my senior year of high school with some relatives in L.A. and attended Wilson High, but my problem was that while I may have had talent, I wasn\u2019t a team player and had attitude issues. I went back to Mexico City and got into music \u2013 my next passion. Eventually, I got an international student visa and enrolled at El Camino College in Torrance, living in the South Bay, but realized what a challenge it was to pay more for tuition as a foreign student. I studied classes in communication, but in Spanish, \u2018communication\u2019 didn\u2019t include print, radio, public relations \u2026 just broadcasting. I felt stuck. I thought about going to USC but I wanted to give the Cal State system a try. I got into Long Beach State for my final two years and got my degree with a concentration on TV broadcasting.<\/p>\n<p><em>LBP<\/em>: How did you navigate Long Beach State while working on your broadcasting?<\/p>\n<p><em>Rivera<\/em>: I don\u2019t think it worked the way it might usually for others. I got an unpaid internship at Fox Sports Net in 2005 because I applied for a job at the campus bookstore, but I didn\u2019t have a social security number. I would go down to the social security office on Long Beach Blvd. and Pacific Coast Highway six different trips and the people there got to know me and try to help me out because they felt sorry for me and my issues with documentation. By the time the social security number came through, I already had a job as a part-time production assistant at Fox Sports and didn\u2019t need the bookstore job. It\u2019s kind of funny how things might have been different if I didn\u2019t have that social security card delay, I wouldn\u2019t have got the Fox interview. It was probably the best thing that happened because from there, Fox Deportes gave me a shot at calling baseball games. I also had a job with DirecTV Latin America and would voice over soccer games. Their office was over near the 710 and 405 freeway, so sometimes, I\u2019d leave a class, work over there on a game, then go back to class.I also got jobs at Channel 57 KJLA doing a Dodgers\u2019 TV show. In my last semester, I missed a week and a half to do World Series games \u2013 the Cardinals and Tigers. Some teachers were very supportive, but it was funny how others didn\u2019t understand why I needed the time off.<\/p>\n<p><em>LBP<\/em>: When you graduated in 2006, you were on your professional path. What\u2019s your connection now to Long Beach State? What are your best memories of going there?<\/p>\n<p><em>Rivera<\/em>: I\u2019m proud of what I did at Long Beach. It was a great experience even &#8212; I wasn\u2019t in any dorms and worked a lot. I remember how much I learned from Barbara Kingsley\u2019s print journalism classes. When my dad came to my graduation \u2013 he speaks mainly Spanish but he can get by with his English, but not a lot \u2013 Barbara told him: \u201cYour son is great, he\u2019s such a go-getter.\u201d My dad had to ask me: \u201cWhat does \u2018go-getter\u2019\u00a0 mean?\u201d Another great teacher was Judy Frutig and she interviewed me for an alumni magazine story, and the cover photo was of me interviewing Victoria Beckham at Dodger Stadium. One of the jobs I had after graduation, trying to get more reps calling baseball, was doing some games for the Long Beach Dirtbags. I don\u2019t think my connections to Long Beach State will ever end.<\/p>\n<p><em>LBP<\/em>: What has been the take-away from your first Kings\u2019 Spanish-language broadcast?<\/p>\n<p><em>Rivera<\/em>: The response was overwhelmingly positive, especially on social media with my goal call going viral. I know how Andres Cantor does his goal call for soccer in the U.S., and I wanted to try something different. But I ended up going loud because people kept asking me to do it that way. I\u2019m comfortable knowing many of the listeners are bilingual. I hope maybe I help the fans enjoy the games better\u2014the team hasn\u2019t been playing as well as they could\u2014and I\u2019d love to call more goals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Francisco X. Rivera, a CSULB grad, will call the second of a 10-game, Spanish-language play-by-play of the Kings\u2019 NHL game against Vancouver on ESPN Deportes\u2019 KWKW-AM (1330) radio station <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":241,"featured_media":16422,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","pmpro_default_level":0,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","footnotes":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[29],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/241"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=62"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=62"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}