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Details a profile on an influential figure. Bill McDermott was the focus of the assignment and it includes examples of integrating storytelling with interviews and research....

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A piece of St. Louis soccer history: Bill McDermot Sam Glass The crowd roared through the stands as the faint thump of a soccer ball being kicked around could be heard among cheers, jeers, hisses, and boos. Through all the noise, there was only one voice that matered to the people of St. Louis in the summer of 1970. A young Saint Louis University graduate spoke deliberately into his mic with a wide-eyed expression on his face to tell everyone back home the going-ons of the match, unaware that more than 40 years later he would still be living this dream. From that 1970 KMOX report in Mexico, Bill McDermot would go on to be involved in every FIFA World Cup through radio or television, earning himself the appropriate local title--Mr. Soccer. McDermot grew up in north St. Louis where the culture was dominated by Irish Catholic soccer. This culture immersed a young McDermot into a world of soccer where the local Billikens served as his entertainment and inspiration. Growing up McDermot had two idols in his life, his father and a former Saint Louis University soccer player, Don Ceresia. McDermot describes Ceresia’s role at his childhood parish, St. Philip Neri, as the “commissioner of soccer.” “There was an upper school yard, and a lower school yard. The younger players played in the lower school yard, and when Don Ceresia deemed it, deemed it accurate that he thought you arrived at the level of play where you can play in the upper school yard, he’s the one that said ‘Yea or nay’,” McDermot said. And ‘Yea’ he said, as McDermot went on to play for the Billikens, and led them to NCAA Championships in 1967 and 1969. The fall of 1969 the Billikens defeated the University of San Francisco at Spartan Stadium. Mcdermot said he and his senior team mates walked around the stadium to take in the atmosphere because they knew that game would be their last soccer game for the Billikens. Twenty-six years later, in 1996, the first ever Major League Soccer game is played between the San Jose Clash and D.C. United at Spartan Stadium. Standing as the sideline reporter is none other than Bill McDermot. “It’s really bizarre how it intertwines between my soccer career and my announcing career,” Mcdermot said. But for Mr. Soccer, you cannot separate the man from the game. The furthest McDermot ever got from soccer was after he graduated from SLU in 1970 when he left for Chicago to atend art school. After two years he returned to SLU as the assistant Athletic Director then went on to work for the St. Louis Stars, a North American Soccer League team of the time. The time spent in Chicago was not wasted, because on July 1, 1976, McDermot started his own graphic design business. Since then he has lived out his dream combining his passion for art and soccer. When asked what role his family has played in his life, McDermot responded instantly: “Absolutely everything.” Mcdermot was graced with three daughters Elizabeth, Mary, and Colleen. Raising three daughters, he coached a lot of young female soccer players, he said.

“I tried to make myself available to them for anything I could do to make them a beter soccer player, but more importantly…to make them a beter woman; to get involved not just in sports, but involved in everyday aspect of society,” he said This lesson McDermot teaches to young athletes is the same lesson he received from his teachers at Saint Louis University--Men and Women for others. Throughout his soccer announcing career the one constant has been his duty as SLU’s first and only public address announcer for Men’s and Women’s soccer. Every time McDermot walks into the press box with his SLU soccer polo, baseball cap, and sunglasses a mood fills the air, knowing an electric performance is about to come through the sound system at Robert R. Hermann Stadium. McDermot said he is so grateful for the opportunities given to him from Saint Louis University that, in the spirit of the Jesuits, he tries to give back. “I’ve never really entertained being involved in anything else,” he said...