Sportscaster Dreams

The injury sidelined her from basketball and softball during her senior year and ended her hopes of playing collegiate soccer. But in that void, Carista found a new way to stay connected to sports—by using her voice.

During her senior year at Norwood-Norfolk Central School, she launched a podcast on Spotify, Caramia Carista’s Passing it On!, reframing her relationship with athletics through storytelling and analysis.

“After I tore my ACL, it wasn’t a great mental slope. It was a very long recovery, two years to learn how to walk again, but during that time I knew I had to channel my energy into something more positive and a podcast is something that I always wanted to do,” she said.

She wasted no time booking high-profile guests, including Norwood-Norfolk alumna Jennifer Hildreth—an Emmy Award-winning play-by-play broadcaster who has covered three FIFA World Cups—and Bob Rathbun, the longtime voice of the Atlanta Hawks. Carista took to the role naturally, earning two nominations for Best Female Podcast Host and Best Entertainment Show.

Finding Her Voice

After graduating from high school, Carista enrolled at SUNY Brockport to pursue a degree in physical education. She also joined the college radio station as a DJ, further fueling her passion for broadcasting. Academically, however, the physical demands of the program did not align with her ongoing recovery.

“I still couldn’t move like I wanted to, and by that point they were expecting me to be able to run,” she said.

After a month and a half, she made the difficult decision to leave Brockport and return home to the North Country. She enrolled at SUNY Potsdam with plans to begin the following semester and, in the meantime, sought hands-on broadcasting experience. Carista secured internships at WPDM and WICY (both now Wild Country FM), working alongside Chris Engel and the late Paul Walbridge.

“Paul Walbridge, rest in peace, was THE voice of the Malone Huskies. He was my broadcasting partner and taught me everything I knew about sports broadcasting. As a woman, I wasn’t necessarily given the open door to be welcomed into this male-dominated environment. Paul was a very open-minded person and had convinced people to give me a chance, because he was a well-respected broadcaster, and without him I wouldn’t have had that foot in the door and the opportunity,” she said.

In addition to high school and collegiate coverage, Walbridge also encouraged Carista to step into professional sports broadcasting—an experience that further tested her confidence and resolve in a male-dominated field.

“I did minor league baseball for a little bit. That was an interesting experience being a woman, doing baseball. People didn’t necessarily love that because women don’t play baseball. So, again, Paul gave me that opportunity. He said, ‘Listen, guys, you just got to give her a chance.’ I ended up broadcasting games featuring Pedro Martinez and Gary Sheffield’s sons.”

Carista still thinks back fondly on her first broadcast with Paul, where they teamed up to cover a Malone Huskies women’s soccer game, one of the standout teams in the league that fall.

“It was so cool to watch this dynamic team, and broadcasting it with the best sportscaster in St. Lawrence County,” she said. “He taught me the ropes. When you have a broadcasting partner, you need to have a dynamic connection. We just clicked instantly and he was a father figure to me.”

Her passion for broadcasting continued to grow. Over the next year, Carista traveled hundreds of miles across New York State covering live sporting events, often unpaid, to gain experience.

“I wasn’t getting paid, but I took whatever opportunity that I could for the experience,” she said.

The Next Level

Carista enrolled at SUNY Potsdam in Spring 2024, returning to a campus that had long been part of her life. As a child, she attended the College’s summer basketball camp beginning at just three years old and returned every year through high school. Now, she was back—this time as a student and broadcaster.

She quickly became the voice of the women’s swimming and diving team, and a broadcaster for everything from basketball to soccer games on PotsdamBears.com.

“To my knowledge, they’ve never had someone do play-by-play for swimming at SUNY Potsdam. Now I’m one of the most well-known SUNYAC swimming broadcasters in our area. I’m also the only female broadcaster overall in a five-hour radius south of Potsdam, just to show how male-dominated the industry is,” she said.

Last fall, Carista expanded her experience through an exchange program at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs (UCCS), where she covered Division II athletics.

“I learned some more production tips out there and took them back and shared with Dan Bronson [SUNY Potsdam’s director of athletic communications]. Our broadcasts were just voice-over before, but we started an on-camera experience now at SUNY Potsdam. It’s good publicity for our college when we’re recruiting. We can say, ‘Look, we have people covering your sport, and it’s done well.’ I love that I can provide that experience for not only our athletes but our viewers as well.”

Building the Foundation

Academically, Carista is pursuing a degree in English, a choice that has strengthened her work in the broadcast booth through writing, critical thinking, and public speaking.

Faculty mentors such as Dr. Sharmain van Blommestein and Dr. Judith Funston, have played a pivotal role in her development. Carista recalls repeatedly revising an early paper for Funston’s class, as she improved it with each draft. One revision required reading the paper aloud before submitting it again, an exercise that proved transformative.

“I had looked over that paper many times before I turned it in and didn’t see one spelling error, then I read it over out loud and saw 10 errors on that page. Since then, I have used that method for everything, including writing my script for broadcasting. It’s something that I’ve carried into my professional career, my other academic papers, and life in general,” she said. “Dr. Funston is a phenomenal professor, and she really helped elevate my writing and speaking ability, and helped me hone my skills.”