Paul Szmal: Good morning 748, it's FLX Morning Monday and resuming with somebody I've known for a few years now, Chamberlain Botter. He was a fantastic play-by-play sportscaster at Brockport, an award-winning lacrosse blogger, and now a documentary filmmaker. Good morning.
Chamberlain Bauder: Good morning, Ted. How's it going?
Paul Szmal: It's going great. So let's, before I forget, I'll start getting into all the details here. Tell us about the name of the documentary and where we can see it and when we can see it at Hobart and William Smith.
Chamberlain Bauder: Yes, so my documentary is Geneva's generational class or the generational class for Geneva lacrosse in the longer sense. It will be at the Sanford room in the library at Hobart and William Smith on Tuesday this week at 7pm. So we're going to do the documentary showing it's about 25 minutes long. And then we're going to also do a question and answer session with myself and all of the players right after following in that room and a reception as well.
Paul Szmal: So what you did was follow a bunch of guys that you played youth lacrosse with. You went on to do other things. They continued playing lacrosse through Geneva High School and on to college. And you said that idea was kind of in your head even before you decided on media as a career.
Chamberlain Bauder: Yeah, it was. So when I was in high school, I had the thought process of potentially doing PA for this group of guys by the time that I got to my senior year of high school. Unfortunately, as most people know, when you're a senior in high school graduating in 2020, not everything that you wanted to do actually pans out the way that you thought it would. So a lot of my plans changed when I ended up coming to college. And if anything, it worked out even better.
Paul Szmal: So how much old footage and stuff were you able to find? Were you able to find videos that parents had shot and stuff during games to put this together?
Chamberlain Bauder: So I used a lot of pictures that at the beginning and end that were from those games. Thankfully, my dad got his SD card converter right in time for when I was finishing up this project. And so a lot of the pictures that are right in the beginning when we get to meet some of the coaches that they had in youth lacrosse and go through a lot of those experiences with those pictures from times on Boswell Field at Hobart, other times in tournaments and different things like that. But yeah, it was definitely interesting to go back through all of those, seeing when the team had won the Battle of the Bos, there's all of those pictures from that. And it's just funny to see the close-ups of every different player's reaction in that.
Paul Szmal: One of the things I found interesting when I heard about this film is that I did all these guys' games at Geneva High. You followed Nate and Nick Askin, Parker Bosser, Dugan Doblin, and Jagger Kerr, and those were all guys who played during the years that I was doing the games. So I can't wait to see this because I remember these guys as Geneva Panthers.
Chamberlain Bauder: Yeah, and I think that's really the key thing for me too, is that when you look at these five athletes, and they're all in college, but first they were Geneva Panthers, and now they're all leaders. But it's really interesting because I think they wouldn't be the leaders that they are if it weren't for the experiences that they gained while at Geneva. And you get to hear that from these guys too. But it was really funny to be able to almost tell some of them that all of the guys that you played with are actively leading their lacrosse teams in other places in New York State. And it's just whether they're just a three to four year starter, or they're the captain of their unit. It's been really impressive just to watch the sportsmanship that they show as athletes, and I think that's what's helped them propel to leaders in their positions.
Paul Szmal: Again, you can come watch Geneva, the generational class, tomorrow, 7pm in the Sanford Room at the Warren Hunting Smith Library at Hobart and William Smith. So I don't want to give it away because I want everybody to come out and see it, but tell us a couple of the stories.
Chamberlain Bauder: Um, yeah, so I mean, really, we give time and space to every single player of those five one of so my favorite, we'll get into the first one a little bit here, Nick and Nate Askin, played at Brockport this year together, and I got to be at Brockport broadcast the entire season. And, you know, I guess we'll go here because it's not too much of a spoiler. Nick was an All-American Honorable Mention, he was the Offensive Player of the Year for his conference, he scored 53 goals, it was absolutely outrageous to watch. And it was by far one of the coolest things then to go in after I got to call that and take that perspective and write about it. And that is one of the coolest parts. But then the other thing is, is I'm so used to just talking about Brockport, then I got to go to three other colleges and tell those stories. I also got to go the section on Jaggers actually at Boswell. So that was really awesome.
Paul Szmal: So one of the things I've seen in high school lacrosse is the rise of programs where they put youth programs in place. It's the teams that are doing very well right now at the high school varsity level are the teams that had these strong youth programs. You know, for example, Penn Yan, I mean, you know, the saying is that everybody grows up and by age three, they've got a lacrosse stick in their hand. And we're seeing that translate into high school success.
Chamberlain Bauder: Yeah, it's well, being from the now covering in the Brockport area, it's been really interesting to be able to see that from the Buffalo Rochester perspective. It gives you a lot of it perspective on just how undeveloped youth programs can really lead to underdeveloped high school programs. And you get a situation where a Churchville Chi-Li in Rochester who Geneva could probably put 20 up on is playing against a Class A school in Buffalo and Churchville Chi-Li is putting up the 20. It's been interesting to see that. But then I think it just makes you appreciate everything that you have in your area more. I know it makes me appreciate my dad, who said he was going to dig for a youth lacrosse program instead of a youth baseball program. But it is definitely ingrained. As early as you can start the sport of lacrosse, you'll be your entire community will be better for it by the time you get to 18.
Paul Szmal: You have really dug in as a lacrosse reporter. Tell us about your Western New York lacrosse podcast. You just won a New York State Broadcasters Excellence in Broadcasting Award. Congratulations on that.
Chamberlain Bauder: Thank you so much. Yeah, I have been doing the Western New York lacrosse podcast for three years. We just ended before I graduated. And it has been my opportunity in college to learn about the sport of lacrosse is how I like to look at it. I've never had an episode that was longer than 20 minutes that didn't have an expert in the sport of lacrosse on it. The episode that we had that actually got me the New York State Broadcasters Award was an interview with Thomas McConvey and Ryan Smith, who were the top five overall picks in the last two years from the Rochester Nighthawks. And so being able to do those types of interviews where you're just trying to gain perspective has always been kind of how it's gone. It's allowed me to go to the NLL draft two times. It's allowed me to cover the entire outdoor season of the Premier Lacrosse League playoffs last year. It's been a lot, but it has been a great teacher throughout my college career.
Paul Szmal: Now tell us what you're up to these days. You're involved in a pro lacrosse now.
Chamberlain Bauder: Yes, right now I'm working in Rochester for the Upstate Collegiate Box Lacrosse League, hoping that that turns into a job with the Rochester Nighthawks after college or after this summer after college. And in my last year as a senior, I actually got to work as an intern for the Buffalo Bandits. So I got to go all the way to the NLL championship, hoist the cup and actually hoist the cup, which was pretty awesome.
Paul Szmal: Wow. And yeah, that was an experience for sure. Do you want to continue on in broadcasting or do you see yourself doing more like front office kind of stuff?
Chamberlain Bauder: I would love to continue broadcasting. So when I went to college, I went with a sport management major initially and a minor in all of my multimedia journalism aspects. And by the time that I graduated, I had a multimedia major and a sport management minor. So when I went in, I definitely thought that I wanted to work in the front office. But now I think I've found that I enjoy being able to communicate the sport to others and I think that I can give it to them in a digestible way. And so I would definitely love to be the broadcaster in those situations.
Paul Szmal: The name of this film is Geneva, the generational class. It follows Chamberlain's former youth lacrosse teammates through Geneva High on to college success. You can see it tomorrow night, 7 p.m. in the Sanford Room, Warren Hunting Smith Library at Hobart and William Smith. Congratulations on this and I'll see you tomorrow night.
Chamberlain Bauder: Thanks so much, Ted.
