Each Monday night when you tune to ESPN for the iconic Monday Night Football, some of those images that you are viewing are brought to via the camera work of Amy Bailey, a 1994 PCHS graduate who got her start with cameras on PCTV during those high school days.
Bailey has spent close to two decades with ESPN, flying around the nation to transmit the images of a sporting event into the homes of millions.
She has worked both Summer and Winter X games, nine Kentucky Derbys, NBA games, all of the college football national championship games and her favorite sports team.
“I absolutely love during UK basketball in the SEC tournament,” she said.
It was at a UK basketball game that I caught up with Bailey, but it would be one of her last events for the season as Covid-19 hit and broadcasting the sports world took a hiatus.
She missed the first rounds of callbacks as some of her colleagues were in Orlando for the NBA bubble, some went to cover boxing and major league baseball cut back to one show not three--no Wednesday night baseball where she had been working for the past seven seasons.
“You had to go somewhere and stay somewhere for 30 to 60 days, and I cannot do that,” she said at the time.
The call did come, though, and it was for Monday Night Football.
“I was asked to be a part of the core crew. That means we all come together and travel as a team every week,” she explained while adding, “It’s difficult leaving the house and being back on the road, but it reaps a great reward emotionally.”
Disney, who owns ESPN, has been great to them during the Covid shutdown, according to Bailey and her ESPN cohorts. “It is great to be working with such talented people. These are the best of the best of the country that works with ESPN.”
While learning to live in the Covid world, she is not afraid of the virus.
“I am more concerned about returning home safelyfrom large cities due to civil unrest, not Covid.”
She indicates that ESPN has taken great measures to keep us safe with masks, weekly testing and extensive onsite protocol.
Her English teacher, David Rose, started a media program that developed PCTV that was broadcast throughout PCHS with Channel 1. From it, she also taped beauty pageants, weddings and graduation videos while in high school.
After a brief stay at UK, she transferred to NKU and there she met her mentor, Russ Jenisch.
“He was a channel 9 news director and started me with the scoreboard at the old Reds stadium,” she said.
“I started in graphics as most women do because typing is a woman thing,” she added while chuckling.
Rose had given her and Craig Owen permission to go to Circuit City in Florence and buy a switch to super VHS cameras, and PCTV was born.
“I really have David Rose, Channel 1 and Craig Owen to thank for a lot,” she said appreciatingly.
Channel 1 was a daily news program for high schools, middle schools and elementary schools that was founded in 1989 and had a national rollout in 1990.
While Channel 1 helped the birth of Bailey’s career, her camera operator career was simply being in the right spot at the right time.
After five years of doing the grunt work as a utility, she was working at a University of Cincinnati football game when “the cart camera on the field ran over the handheld operator. Somebody on headset said that I could run the camera and I took over.”
“As the handheld guy lay in agony on the medical bench, I picked up his camera and finished the game,” she added.
That was in 2002 and someone’s broken leg turned into her big break.
She is one of only 10 women across the country that she knows that is doing camera work.
“It’s a very male-dominated industry,” she added.
One of the coolest shots she has taken was when Travis Pastrana threw his first double back on a motorcycle in competition and landed it.
It can be viewed at https://youtu.be/wnP0jKqy7_w, and there are times her blond hair behind a camera is visible.
“A wicked night. I followed him backstage when he did rock paper scissors with his roadie and switched into his extra padded under armor. I remember his mom being so nervous. What a great night,” she said.
With her new gig at MNF, she has got to visit the new stadium in Las Vegas for the Raiders and in California for the Chargers.
While she is back behind the camera now, she has concerns for her industry.
“My industry may not function in the same manner ever again,” she said.
She lamented the fact that camera operators will be replaced by robotics and students are doing a lot of productions.
“Everybody’s looking to cut budgets,” she said.
It’s something Bailey is used to as her start came on less than a shoestring school budget for a fledging school network, PCTV.
