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Back to School

James Brown sits in his familiar host chair, welcoming viewers to an NFL broadcast. He throws a question to his analysts—“Who is the surprise team to look out for this season?”—and they give their takes. He presses them on their reasons, and the former players on set engage in the type of debate fans are used to hearing on Sunday mornings.

Except it’s not a Sunday, and it’s not football season. JB is on a set on the NFL Films campus in Mt. Laurel, NJ, bantering with the participants in the NFL Broadcasting Boot Camp. A group of 20 current and former players were selected out of a pool of more than 100 applicants, along with five advanced participants that had taken part in the Broadcasting Boot Camp over the past few years.

With executives and producers from more than 10 networks and media companies on hand, the athletes are spending three days getting a hands-on education in the broadcasting industry. Now in its eighth year, “broadcasting” was the first Boot Camp put on by NFL Player Engagement, and it’s been followed by others that give players insight into different industries such as music, sports journalism, franchising and more. Broadcasting remains the most competitive, with only about 20 percent of applicants getting in and many of them applying several times before getting in.

With household names like Brown, Fox’s Curt Menefee, Greg Cosell of NFL Films and Ron Jaworski of ESPN on hand to impart broadcasting wisdom, the Broadcasting Boot Camp has helped several alumni land high-profile jobs. Tim Hasselbeck, regularly seen on ESPN, and Sirius XM NFL’s Ross Tucker are two graduates of the program that have made it big.

Amani Toomer, the former Giant who first attended Broadcasting Boot Camp in 2011, came back as one of five advanced participants this year. He’s seen the program grow and evolve over the past several years. He said the participants get much more individualized attention this year, with smaller groups that allow for more instruction. For Toomer, who has been on a national radio show since 2012, there were a few reasons to come back to camp.

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