College football season is here and on-air reporter Lawrencia Moten is ready to hit the road with HBCU Go, a media provider for the nation’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Moten’s 13 weeks begin on August 30 with Hampton vs. Jackson State. Throughout the season she will serve as the sideline reporter for HBCU Go’s syndicated broadcast.
“We have doubleheaders pretty much every day on the network; there are cable games and then there are games on syndication,” she said. “I’m doing basically all the Division I teams.”
HBCU Go covers all the HBCU football teams that compete in the NCAA, but Moten’s focus this season will be teams from the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) and the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) as well as HBCU schools that play in other conferences, such as Hampton.
“HBCU Go has done a tremendous job with the schedule in making sure that we get a lot of classics,” said Moten, who is excited to come to come to MetLife Stadium in New Jersey on Sept. 13 when Howard University takes on Morehouse College for the HBCU NYC Football Classic.
Moten, a former college basketball player now in her third season covering football for HBCU Go, has built her skills and knowledge of the sport. “I’ve really made it my job to be the connector between the athletes, coaches and our broadcast crew,” she said. “This year, specifically, I made sure that I was doing pretty much all of the coaches’ interviews and most of the student-athlete interviews during media day, so I was able to be that forward-facing person for them.”
When she is doing sideline reporting, Moten puts an emphasis on storytelling. “On a football team, there are so many tremendous stories, so I’m talking to those coaches and asking them questions far beyond game week,” she said. “It’s been go-time for me for about two months now, making sure I talk to those coaches, if they have any new players with tremendous stories, asking them to let me know.”
When football season ends, Moten shifts to the hardwood, taking on play-by-play, color commentary, or sideline reporting depending on the game. She covers both men’s and women’s basketball.
“I’ve been leaning into the play-by-play side; I feel like the storytelling is great,” she said. “There are more opportunities for me to kind of flex my skills.”