Three alumni of Saugerties High School’s renowned Computer Video Production (CVP) program won Sports Emmy Awards in 2020 for their work as associate producers on MLB Tonight on the MLB Network. The Outstanding Studio Show (Daily) was awarded alongside other Sports Emmys last August, but as with many things during the Covid-19 pandemic, it took some time for the awards to reach their recipients.
“There’s nothing more rewarding than having current students and/or former students be recognized for their hard work,” said Scott Wickham, who co-founded the CVP program with Jackie Hayes during the 2004-05 school year. “These three young men have worked very hard and done the right things along their path.”
Ryan Bonelli (SHS Class of 2013) is now a two-time Emmy winner with MLB Network, and he was joined in 2020 by Biko Skalla and Curtis Jorgensen, both 2015 Saugerties High grads. Among their jobs for MLB Tonight was watching baseball games and cutting highlights, skills learned in CVP courses.
“I think it was just something that was different,” Bonelli said of CVP. “Most of the classes that I was taking were all just normal; math, science, all that kind of stuff. So when I saw something that was sports and video and something that was totally different, I was like, ‘Oh, that’s really cool.’”
Of the three, Bonelli is the only one still in Secaucus, New Jersey with MLB Tonight; the network cut numerous associate producers when the pandemic paused the start of pro baseball in March 2020. Skalla found another job in baseball last summer, quickly becoming popular enough as a ‘broadcast entertainer’ with the Savannah Bananas, who play in the Central Coast League; he’ll return to Georgia next month for a second season in Savannah. Jorgensen is working for Markertek in Saugerties while awaiting word from law schools, where he hopes to study entertainment law.
Skalla and Jorgensen have been close friends for more than half their lives; both majored in television, radio and film at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. Skalla earned enough credits at SHS to start at Newhouse as a high school senior, and he also found a gig at MLB Network before Jorgensen.
“I used him as my connection there,” Jorgensen said. “I interviewed and basically it was just like, ‘If you like Biko, you might get another one.’ They hired me in like a couple of days.”
Working in professional sports can be fun, but it’s also arduous, especially cutting video highlights on the east coast, where games played in California and Washington routinely end well after midnight.
“The hours were pretty tough sometimes,” Jorgensen said. “It was a 6:30 p.m. until 3 a.m. shift. Because the Dodgers game starts at 7 p.m. their time, and on the East coast, those can go until one or two in the morning and then you have an hour to actually finish up the show.”
Still with MLB Tonight, Bonelli is eligible for an Emmy hat trick, having won the award in both 2018 and 2020.
“I just think it’s still unreal,” Bonelli said. “It’s still so early on in my career too, I feel like there’s just so much more that I can accomplish. But this is kind of like the coolest thing, because not many people have this opportunity.”
Skalla joined MLB Network a year before Jorgensen, but they both won their first Emmy together.
“It certainly meant a lot you know,” Skalla said. “I mean it’s an Emmy! My man Ryan had already won an Emmy the year before I got to the network, and then we were nominated but lost to (ESPN program) Pardon the Interruption my first year there so it definitely felt amazing to actually win one with Curt on board with us in my second year.”
Skalla and Jorgensen worked the same shift, producing highlight clips for MLB Tonight and Quick Pitch.
“It’s a small amount of the overall broadcast associates and associate producers who are truly on that grind for a full summer, so it definitely felt a little extra special to have put the vast majority of my work into the show that won the Emmy,” Skalla said.
All three SHS Emmy winners only recently received their awards. Jorgensen said he was humbled that the MLB Network made sure to get him one given he no longer works for them.
“I was telling people, ‘I won an Emmy,’ and they’re like, ‘Well, where is it?’” Jorgensen said. “There was no proof aside from my name on this big list of names of people that worked on the show…MLB Network was very generous and decided to cover the statutes for every single person who qualified for one.”
Bonelli, Skalla and Jorgensen all credit their time in the CVP program at Saugerties High with showing them a potential career path they might not have ordinarily thought to pursue. Bonelli said the program has only grown since he was in school and he hopes other Saugerties students will give it a try.
“There’s no reason not to try to take a couple classes,” he said. “You might find something that you would love to do. I didn’t know really what I wanted to do going into college, and I went through those classes and I was like, ‘Oh wow, I can make this a career. This is actually really cool’.”
Skalla agreed. “Well CVP is some good ol’ fashioned fun, that’s for sure,” he said. “That’s not to say you don’t have to put the work in. I spent plenty of weekends filming a commercial, skit, short film, whatever is on the docket at that point in time. But if you truly love the process of making quality videos, and I mean writing, story boarding, creating shot sheets and then going out and filming, you absolutely have to take the classes.”
Skalla added that he and Jorgensen had a significant advantage over other Newhouse students solely because of their CVP experience at Saugerties High.
“I’m sure (Curt) will say this too if you ask him, but we were probably in the bottom 50 percent of Newhouse when it comes to pure intelligence, it’s a darn hard school to get into,” Skalla said. “But we were leaps and bounds ahead of our classmates when it came to all things video production and that is strictly because of Ms. Hayes and Mr. Wickham and the Saugerties CVP program they created.”
The CVP program hasn’t stood still since the three Emmy winners were still in high school. The daily morning announcements are a polished news program broadcast each school day and archived on the district’s YouTube page. There’s an annual film festival, held last year online but may happen in person this June. And Wickham said the newest CVP project is “developing a play-by-play and color commentating program for events using the new camera systems in the high school gym and football field.”
They’ve also installed podcast stations in the studio to enhance communication skills.
“We are blessed to have a school district and community that values the efforts and importance of our program,” Wickham said.
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