Welcome to Knight Talks, the Un of Florida College of Journalism and Communications talk sho produced by the students for you I'm Jake MacTavish.

I'm a freshman studying advertis And our guest today is Ama Shah, a UF College of Journalism and Communications graduate who and produced content for the NFL the NBA, ESPN, and he is now an publishing with Scholastic.

Hi Amar, thank you for joining u Jake, It's a pleasure.

It's a pleasure to be here too w First question is, in 2003, you earned your bachelor degree in journalism from the CJ How did this prepare you for your future career?

Wow.

It seems like so long ag that I graduated, but it also se just like yesterday, Graduating laid the foundation for me as a storyteller, as a reporter, and as a journalist.

During that time I was a print journalism major, and then I switched over to onli because it was the brand new major that had just come ou and I knew we were at an interes point in media and journalism that was changing.

The whole landscape was moving o into a world that I didn't know about, an so I wanted to make sure I was p So I ended up switching from pri to online my last year, and I learned how to do things from like coding to editing and all of those different thing laid the foundation for me, for all my future opportunities that I learned here at UF.

You worked at ESPN from 2004 to as a writer, producer and as a highlight producer.

Later, you also worked there as marketing rep and in content dev What did each of these roles ent So my first job at a schoo was sort of like a dream opportu I got into the production assis trainee program at ESPN in Brist Yeah.

And so that turned out to b graduate school for television p When you get a chance to kind of work on a show like Spor your second week into the job, and you're cutting a 30 second highlight and you have t that script in that video to the in time you learn how to breathe under p And so after that, you know, Bristol became a little too small for my wife and as far as the things that we wan And I ended up getting an opport in L.A. to work in marketing for ESPN.

It's a brand new world for me, but sometimes you make these diagonal jumps in your caree that educate you in so many ways And I worked in Disney and ESPN Media Networks.

I worked in Burbank, California.

And so that job really taught m how to work with different depar And then my relationship with ES was always there.

So even though I worked in diff spots, I ended up going back to in 2011 and 201 where I worked in content develo And so that was the grou that did all the 30 for 30 serie And so it was really awesome to and working you know, in on the film side.

And so I always continued that relationship with ESPN even afterward doing freelance work for them.

And I got a chance to do everyth you know, doing documentary shorts about SlamBa to creating baseball card shorts So working for ESPN really cemented my ability to tell stor Yeah, it sounds like ESPN was l a really good foundation for tha Can you speak more on how you ki got that jumpstart opportunity to work with them?

Yeah.

So for me, after I graduated I was like a lot of students, yo looking for that first job out and so you're trying to utilize every opportunity that you have.

And so I was able t I joined a group called the Sout Journalist Association, SAJA, and I was abl to go to their convention in Ne and this was back in like 2004.

I met the director of diversity and I stayed in touch with her for about five or six months.

And then luckil I was able to land an interview.

And so I flew over to Bristol, I did interview and somehow they used to do a thing called a sports quiz.

And there were a particular group of peopl that would basically take you ar and little by littl they were interviewing you by te different, asking you different about sports.

And I ended up succeeding and I got the job.

And so, you know, kind o getting in the door that ended u an incredible network for me la that I'm still in touch with to In 2009 you started Tamale Jar serving as an executive producer What types of clients and projects did you focus on?

You know in your career nothing kind of g you know, to a certain trajector that you anticipate.

And so I worked at a company called MySpace at the time and unfortunately, I suffered.

I went through the Great Recess and my job was one of those that that was lost And so I didn't know what to do.

It was the first time I've ever, you know, was unemployed.

But I think when you work in me something that you have to go th And my wife and I decided, you we want to start something on ou And so we started Tamale Jar Pro and what we did with that production company was we creat for a slew of different companie that ranged from ESP to do doing work for creative ag like a company called Octagon, we ended up being their in-house And so we worked with a variety and we did some really cool feat and I was really happy that we we ended up doing our own thing you know, from an obstacle that we were able to thrive.

2012 was also the year you bega working as a lead digital featur editor slash produce with the National Football Leagu How did you land that position what were some of the specific p you had in hand?

That's a really great question.

Working at the NFL was an absol come true, but it was one of tho where I had the benefit of work in sports for a long period of t And so one of the people that I before, Mark Brady, so someone who I worked with at ESPN who w actually ended up working at the And so I saw a role ther for a new position called the Di Features Editor.

And so I applied for i and I got in, I got the intervie and I interviewed with my futur named Carmen Dukes, who was incr And I ended up landing the job.

And so what that job was, I was of basically anything pop cultur when it came to the NFL our group kind of was in charge So it was almost like working at a brand new incubator at one of the biggest companies.

We called it The Shield.

And so I was like a kitten in a I got a chance to do so many di things from, you know, from writ my own fantasy football column creating a platform called NFL U which was related to for fitness to doing something where I kind of created the Vars oral history to creating the casual fans guide to the Super Bowl.

I got to, you know it was like it was a dream come I got a chance to cover the NFL I got a chance to go to the NFL where I really badly ran the 40 dash.

I got to go to the Super Bowl and cover that.

So it just ended u being an incredible opportunity plus years where, like I said, I was living the dream job.

Yeah.

I noticed in a lot of your work, in your entire timeline a lot of it focuses on stuff wit What's the inherent interest in that field?

So I hav I was a short, skinny kid growin I'm still short, not as skinny, but I've always loved sports more than anything growing up.

And so getting a chance to conti that as a main vocation is something that I've absolute and I've always prided myself th one of the few kids that was on of Sports Illustrated for Kids, the cover of ESPN and on the cover of NFL.com.

And I was a complete non-athlete Yeah, I mean, good achievemen to have over your peers, right?

Following your time with the Mag you worked as a Director of Dig Content for the Orlando Apollos.

What was your biggest challenge in this role?

I absolutely loved my time with the Orlando Apollos and anyone who has loved Steve S This is a dream come true.

As a Florida Gator, Coac Spurrier was the head coach of t and so it was a brand new footb called the Alliance of American And so, you know I took a chance and I ended up becoming part of an organization that we started from scratch.

So we had so many opportunities to try things, to experiment.

And I've always thrived with a s whether it was at the NFL and, you know, i starting with that digital featu the Orlando Apollos just allowed to create something in my own vi And I was given the freedom to create the entire strategy.

And so I was able to hire my tea I was able to, you know, we created documentaries we created entire social media s and it was just cool to kind o see something that didn't even e and kind of build it up.

We ended up having like the best in the league and working with Coac Spurrier was like, was incredibl He is an absolute genius and getting a chance to see tha close and personal, was like a d like I said, I have lived many and that was one of the dreams.

And unfortunately the league didn't end up surviving.

But I, I would do it all again in a heartbeat.

Across your whole career, do you have a most memorable int or story you worked on?

Yeah, I have I've lucky, I've been lucky enou to interview some of the most in people on the planet from like from Michael Jordan to Buzz Aldr But one of the stories that I lo to tell and that still resonate was I got a chance to interview the famous actor Jon Voight, for the oral history of Varsity Varsity Blues was a movie that came out in 1999.

It was a big football movie, hi football movie about football in starred James Vanderbeek and Sc Paul Walker and a bunch of other And so my job for the NFL was to basically tell how that movie was made.

So I got a chance to review all the different actors, the directors and producers.

But the one person that was stil was the coach.

And Jon Voight who is a famous actor, played th and I chased Jon Voight down for six months.

I called every number and finall I got a voicemail saying, Hi, Am this is Jon Voight.

I'm just returning your call.

So I immediately called him bac and for about an hour I had an i that I did on my phon and I had a recorder and he talk He was like the nicest guy, ans every single one of my questions When I went back to check the in None of it recorded.

No.

And I didn't know what to do.

And so I decided to call Mr. Voi So I called him back and I didn't particularly tell h that the recording was lost.

I was like, look, I have some ot questions that I want to ask.

Would you mind spending...?

He said, absolutely.

So he ended up spending more tim with me on that interview, and this time it recorded.

And so it was one of those thin where I ended up getting better from the second interview even though I botched the first That's a really amazing story.

And what I get from that was re the grit that you put into it, t I mean, losing the first interv and then having to do a second i I think having that grit and per in your role as a journalist is as much as it is, is becoming a storyteller because I think wha you is you're going after the st And that Varsity Blues projec took me almost a year to put tog and so ended up, you know what ended up being that last in But, you know, it was worth it.

Currently you're an executive pr of Studio T Creative.

How does a creative team help it and how did you navigate the dy of working alongside your wife?

So after the Orlando Magic, you my wife and I had already starte Tamale Jar Productions, bu we wanted to kind of change the that topic a little bit.

And so we wanted to create a, almost a niche.

Another thing I love, another phrase that I've always is there's always riches in the And so for us, we had a very par niche and that was animation.

And so my wife also worked as a creative director, and so we decided to team up aga and target that particular area of animatio and utilizing it for different c So we put together an incredible We were able to get client that ranged from like Golf Chann to NHL teams, all the way to a baking company.

Fleischmanns Yeast, which is a baking product.

We ended up creating their 150th anniversary video that ended up getting an E And so we were it was really cool to be able to to work with my wif and create that team together.

And so, you know there's always like different th that you have to deal wit when you're dealing with your sp And so I think we both learne how to kind of deal with each ot And in some ways we're not reall dealing with that right now.

She's kind of doing her own thin I'm doing my own thing.

But I think Studio T for me is the next evolution of storytelling for us, whether it's going to be documen or original IP and kind of using that as being as a startup to creating our own production company 2.0.

Yeah, and I really do love the s that you're dropping, little hints of wisdom.

Could you speak more o the saying you were just talking Sure.

In terms of like riches in the n I actually have to borrow, I borrowed that from the direct DuVernay and I don't know if she that's something she came up wit But I always looked at it as, there are so many areas where you can find your particular expertise.

You could be in, it's not just s it's not just basketball, but it could be a segment of ba that you're the expert on or lik for example, the world that I'm which is middle grade fiction, t there's a lack of sports stories in that space.

And I'm hoping that my book can you know, take that niche and I can be, you know and I can kind of, you know, ext some riches from it because I really think there's o in so many different areas.

You just have to keep your minds to that possibility and then it will definitely show A project you're currently worki is the Patel Motel story.

Could you tell us more about th documentary?

Yeah, absolutely.

So when I grew up, when I moved from New Jersey to my dad bought a gas station.

So I grew up as what I call a co So I'm Gujarati Indian and so a lot of, Gujarat is a s in India where a lot of Indian A come from, especially ones with the last name Shah and So you either grew up in a gas s or you grew up in a motel.

And so for me, I even thoug I grew up in a gas station, my c and my friends all grew up in t of motels, of Econolodges and Tr And so as I grew up this world became my universe.

But it wasn't until years later when I realized that 60% of all of the hotels and motels the United States are owned and by South Asians in particular with the last name And so for me, that was one of t entrepreneurial and immigrant st of the last 50 years.

They owned, I think around $350 billion worth of property.

And so it's one of these like A stories that people just don't k And so I thought it would b the perfect area for me to find how did this happe and why did it become this way.

And so the last three or four ye I've been working on the roots of how this story came about.

And it's completely fascinating.

It's about how three undocument immigrants came over in the thir and forties to California to cr incredible hospitality empire.

And so I've been working on the for like the last three or four and we've shot from Dallas to California to Maryland and we're continuing to film to Yeah, and 60% is a major statist What do you hope to d with this documentary when it's You know, the goal is to get dis and to get it into a platform like Netflix or Amazon and, you to get as many people to kind of And so I think the character in particular that we're intervi are all incredible.

They're all these amazing American entrepreneurs that started from scratc to create this amazing American Most recently, you're offering b published with Scholastic.

Tell us about ‘Wish I Was a Ball in the Play The Game trilogy.

So the next evolution for my car is one that I've wanted since I was a little kid, and that wa a published author and novelist.

And so when I was around 35, when my son was born in 2015, I wanted to write a novel.

It's something I've always want but I never had the discipline t And so for, from age 35 to age 4 I wrote every mornin and every night in between 9 to And so in 2020 I ended up finishing my first bo And then a couple of months late right before I turned 40, I was able to, I landed an agent a couple of months after.

And so after that you have to go through the proce of submitting a book to different publishers.

And so it reminded m of all these different industrie that I worked i and how hard it was to break in.

And so I ended up getting that b to an editor at Scholastic, and I got a call a couple months from my agent saying that this e was actually leaving, and so, but she had better news for me and that was that his boss wante to give me a three book deal based off of the novel that I had written, the sample that I provided for another proj So Scholastic gave me a three bo to write a middle school basketball trilogy, which was s I've always wanted to do as a yo growing up in middle school I never had any representation f you know, on, you know, as a Indian-American or as a basketba And so to be able to create a ch who was a version of mysel and also a version of my son and and have it in Scholastic which is the same publisher as J Rowling, the same publishe as the author of Hunger Games.

It was like a dream come true.

And so that book series is well, And then I have another book com which is actually based off the first novel I wrote, called I Was a Baller, which comes fro the famou 95 Skelos song Wish I Was a Ball which is a rap hip hop track when I was a freshman.

And so that is all about my frie with Shaquille O'Neal back in the nineties and also m as the youngest writer for Slam So I got a chance to cover the N as a high school kid.

And it's all about those years, you know, being at the creme de la crem of getting a chance to interview Michael Jordan Scottie Pippen and Penny Hardawa along with being like a skinny, high school kid who's trying to the yearbook editor and who she's a senior.

And so there's just lik there's all this stuff that you with in high school with all of come true that come with it.

How do you infuse elements of I American culture into your work how do you strive to challenge and promote nuanced representati So I think for me one of the biggest stories I eve was I wrote a Washington Post ed about what it was like to be the son of Apu.

My dad, as I said, was in the ga business, and I never felt that his world was properly kind of introduced to America because I saw it as an everyday because this is my dad.

And so it was incredibl because these experiences growin were never talked about.

And so getting a platform to be to tell these American storie is so important to us because.

We never had that growing up.

And to be able to show represen whether it's the Patel Motel sto or whether it's the novels that I'm writing, I want to make sure that these e are universal experiences that anyone can be able to acces And so for me, whether it's lik like our traditions, like Navrat or Diwali, to me those are as Am as Christmas or Easter.

And so I'm sort of excited to s these different things that I gr with, but also making them acce for everybody else to understand Yeah, and I really thin the work that you're doing is im I mean, for earlier generations just like flat examples, just li But in more recent year you see all sorts of representat Yeah, I mean what's been incredi the last few years is the cosmopolitan experienc that people are getting with not the Indian-American experience, but also the South Asian American experience, whether it's Marvel shows or whether it's Sundance filmmak or whether it's narrative fictio There's just so many varieties of storytelling that people are finally gettin their opportunity to tell their At one point you were a content producer for the platform MySpace.

How is digital media evolving since the 2000s, and where do you foresee the digital heading in the near future?

Wow.

MySpace.

That brings back some really fun So I worked at MySpace in the la 2000, ought I guess they call them, 2008, 20 And MySpac was the most popular website at It was bigger than Facebook even but it was kind of like being at until it got broken up.

And that's what it was like during the Great Recession.

You know, everyone had a MySpace You can go back and watch Adam Sandler movies where he's talking about MySpace Tom, and being at MySpace.

But what happens is every few year there's a new platform that come and kind of changes the ballgame whether it was MySpace or whether it was Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok.

It all evolves.

And I think that's the only thi that you can be certain of is ch and that these platforms are go to morph in terms of where they' and how people use them.

And so the only thing that remai constant is how do you use those to create storytelling?

And I think, you know whether it's a 15 second video o long documentary, you're always to have to know the art of story And I think that's never going t And the way that I see it const evolving and changing is like, r you have AI and AI is going to be a game cha if not, if it hasn't been alread And I think over the next 5 to you're going to see so many diff genres morph together and chang that you constantly have to be o shift as far as where it's going Nobody knows no one has a glass to kind of se we think the future is headed.

But the only thing you know is that it's going to change, but you just have to be in the m or have a frame of mind to know that these things are co And how do you adap your skill sets to that platform You gain skills that are applie positions that don't even exist You've seen that in your own personal experience.

Yeah.

I mean, I look back in my years and, you know, these are the nas days of video editing, of like A Premiere, of learning HTML.

And, you know, I didn't know tha I kind of knew, but I didn't know how I would u those things growing up in my ca And I ended up using those at different times.

But I also knew that, you know, constantly reinvesting in yourse and making sure that you're picking up skillsets.

But also the biggest skillset of that is having the mindset to kno that things are going to be chan and giving yourself the opportun to change with those times.

And I think that' why it's so important to always in your own educatio and in your own self versus anyt Yeah, a lot of common traits, I see adaptability, grit, would you add anything to that l Yeah, I think you have to have, I think you have to have an outlandish belief in yourself And I think it's important to be self-confident You don't have to be arrogant, but you have to have this belief in your vision.

And I always kind of use like to use the moonshot analogy that you know you're trying to get to the moon but and you're going to buil all this infrastructure to get t that even if you may not get th the first time you're building, you never know what technology or what kind of thing you're building along the way.

So it's this amazing journey th all taking to get to where we wa And it's also having the ability to learn how to pivot and to know that the world doesn a straight narrative.

It's always going to shift, but understanding that you're e going to get to the place you wa you just may not get ther at the exact moment you want to Yeah, like you said you get successes at different t You started off at the jump of s but then you see achievemen in a different field in your for Yeah.

I mean, I didn't know that my vo would change from like, like producer to author and nove But it's one of those things I think with each season of your as long as you're open to know t hey, this isn't coming right no but this will eventually arrive.

My forties have been an incredi opportunity for me to see where that I had when I was a kid are coming tru and so I wouldn't have it any ot Thank you for your insight, Amar I feel like we went over a lot t having this outlandish belief i that's important to have, to gri and so many other insight that it doesn't really matter wh form of job might be, whether it or something else entirely.

Thank you to our viewers for joining us tonight.

And until next time, goodnight and go Gators.