KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Knoxville Catholic High School has added its spin on what a pregame show is like ahead of Friday night football.
Welcome to The First Down; a pregame show hosted, written, produced, and directed by students of the Irish Sports Network at Knoxville Catholic High School. It's hosted by Knoxville Catholic football player and student, Paul Fisher. Students help write, produce and direct the show each Thursday.
Knoxville Catholic's broadcasting teacher, Guy Shelton, pitched the idea of the show to Fisher in July.
"I ran with it," Fisher said. "I was like ‘of course’… pitched it to the class and they were on board. And since then, we've been just writing the scripts, getting all the interviews together and honestly the support I’ve had with everyone being down to do this has just been amazing."
The idea came from Fisher watching his favorite college and NFL pregame shows.
"They always have a pregame show," Fisher said. "I was like, ‘No one else does that for high school football, why don’t we start that?’ It’s not going to get very big but it’ll be something that we will do and it’ll be fun."
Now, every Thursday, Fisher and the Irish Sports Network team have different guests on the show from coaches, to players, to administration. They will preview the game ahead, hyping fans and encouraging them to cheer for their favorite team.
Fisher sits at the desk as the host, but the students work behind the scenes each week to ensure the show goes on. It is set to premiere on Friday at 7:10 p.m. ahead of kickoff.