Bridget Condon still remembers what Friday nights at Kamitian Field in Holliston look, sound and feel like.
Condon, a 2011 graduate of Holliston High School, also played field hockey and lacrosse and ran winter track as a Panther. Now, she’s one of the key on-air personalities at NFL Network, but she’s never forgotten where her love for sports and ultimately football started.
First, it was a magical night at Fenway.
“In 2004, my parents, me and my sisters and my grandfather went to Game 4 of the ALCS, Red Sox-Yankees at Fenway,” Condon began in a recent phone interview. “It was a Sunday night, it was late and they were losing and my mom was like ‘we’ve got to go, the girls have school tomorrow,’ and my dad was like ‘no, you never leave a baseball game early. Are you kidding me? We don’t know what could happen.’ So, we ended up staying and it was really late and we were walking through the streets of Boston at whatever time the game ended, and people were just going crazy and having so much fun. It was so fun because all these people were connected in a way I had never felt before. Obviously they won that game, won the series, advanced and won the World Series for the first time in 86 years.
“After that moment, I fell in love with sports and I fell in love with playing sports and just being a fan of it and getting that connection I didn’t think you could get through anything else being a part of the same sports fandom.”
When it comes to falling in love with football, Condon vividly remembers how much of a role those Friday nights at Kamitian played a role in this turning into a passion and eventually, a career.
“I just feel so lucky that I went to a high school that was 1. so good at football and 2. such a small town where we all were able to rally around each other,” she said. “I remember my sophomore year was when Joey Larracey died and one of my biggest memories is going to the candlelight vigil at Holliston High School and just seeing the entire community come together was something that…even in talking with people I met in college, I don’t think anybody has had that support like we had at HHS. My girlfriends and I are all still best friends, the same girls I went to games with every Friday night.
“There are core memories for me in the stands. Learning the chants – we still know one chant that isn’t really appropriate, we were screaming it on the bus at my wedding – it’s just something I think is engrained in you if you grow up in Holliston. Going to Friday night football. Going to the Thanksgiving Day game against Westwood. We all make our plans around what time the game’s at whether it’s at Westwood or Holliston, figuring out a way to support your friends. My junior and senior year is when the team played in the Super Bowls at Gillette Stadium. Being there and getting to watch your friends play a state championship game, there’s nothing better than that. I think because Holliston was so good, we all learned football at such a young age because we wanted to pay attention and understand what was happening, what our friends were doing out on the field. Being able to understand what chant came next, you had to know what exactly was going on in the game to be able to be a part of it. Those are the moments when I think about high school were the best times for me.”
Condon still didn’t know that working in sports was really a possibility until heading to James Madison University. Holliston may have developed her love of football, but it wasn’t until those days where it became a career choice.
“I guess I didn’t really realize that this was a career. I didn’t understand how people got into it until I was in college and got into the School of Media, Arts & Design and took my first journalism class,” she acknowledged. “That’s when I realized I loved telling stories and I loved sports and I found a way to combine the two. I had an internship the summer before my senior year in Los Angeles and I interned with Time Warner Cable Sports, so I did the Dodgers, Lakers, the WNBA’s Sparks and (MLS’) Galaxy. After that summer is when I really solidified that this is what I really want to do.
“My senior year at JMU I worked for MadiZone which is the online student broadcast and I did sideline for football and basketball games and worked on the pregame show. I did a local internship at a news station in Charlottesville, the station I ended up working at when I graduated. So, it wasn’t until college where I realized this is how you do something like this and I got my foot in the door. Then, the opportunities just kept coming and I was like ‘okay, I’m going to roll with this as along as I can get work in this field’ and luckily I’ve been able to make a career out of it.”
After graduating from JMU in 2015, Condon moved on to the CBS station in Charlottesville (WCAV) for two years before moving on to the ABC station in Raleigh, North Carolina (WTVD) where she worked for four years. After that, NFL Network came calling where Condon has been since.
That was the first true ‘holy crap’ moment for her.
“Yeah, it was.” she said with a laugh. “My dream had always been…because this job’s a grind…I always thought I’m going to move wherever I need to. I’m going to grind as much as I could. My goal was always to get to a network by the time I was 30 and then take a deep breath. Obviously, I want to have a family and my 30th birthday is actually next week, so getting to be here in that time frame – which was just something I created for myself, if I hadn’t done it, it wouldn’t have been a big deal – it made it feel like all the days where I was covering eight different high schools, basketball games, driving all across central Virginia working 12-hour days, it made it feel worth it. To be at the network and have the experience being around the people we work with is so cool.”
So, what’s been the best part about being on such a big stage like NFL Network?
“Just how passionate people are about their teams,” said Condon. “People are always watching what you’re doing, what you’re saying and being able to…there’s tons of things (on teams) out there that people have already seen. But, what I try to do is find that one piece of info or that one nugget that someone told me that nobody else has heard yet so I can go on TV and say something and people watching are like ‘oh wow I didn’t know that’ or I hadn’t heard that in the 10 days leading up to the game.’ That’s my favorite part. Getting to talk to a player and find something unique or interesting out that not everybody knows and getting to bring that to the fan base and just bridging that space between fans and players.
“Getting to work for the NFL is something that still is surreal to me. Like, holding the mic that says NFL Network. Being on the field pregame when teams run out and getting to be the one telling everyone ‘hey this is why you should care about this,’ or ‘this is why you need to watch.’ As the person doing that, there’s pressure because you’ve got to know what you’re talking about and you’re not missing anything. Your eyes are so important at these games because you’re representing the league and I take a lot of pride in getting to do that knowing all the things I went through to get here and all the hard work I put in.”
From Holliston to Hollywood, Condon got her start as a simple small-town girl going to support her friends on Friday nights. It’s quite a story and one that she hopes others – especially young girls who love sports – will want to follow.
Her advice? Don’t listen to anyone else but yourself.
“Just a small town girl from Holliston, Massachusetts now getting to report on a national level is a dream come true and I feel so fortunate to get to do it,” she added. “One of the biggest things I did was find a really good mentor. Lindsay Czarniak has been my mentor since college. She went to James Madison and we got connected and she’s been such a great sounding board whenever I’m dealing with anything. I can give her a call and she’s experienced it. So, getting to make a connection with someone who’s been in your footsteps before and can say ‘hey, this is a big deal or this isn’t a big deal or this is how you get through it,’ has been really beneficial to me.
“So many people have told me no or that I wasn’t going to make it or wasn’t good or laughed at me for wanting to do this. If you’re really passionate about this and you love it, the only thing that should matter is the voice inside your head. You can find a way to do it, whether you’re a boy or girl and from whatever background. There is space for you, you just have to sometimes create it for yourself.”