It’s not necessarily unusual to see Ross Marra’s name on Connect-Bridgeport. During his time at Bridgeport High School, the alum had his work featured regularly on the Web site.

 

Journalism teacher Alice Rowe let me know early in Marra’s time at the school that she had someone that was very capable on the video end of things that could provide content to the site. Since Rowe has never steered me wrong and I’m a sucker for free content, Marra was given wide access to use the site as a forum to post his work.

 

Dozens of videos promoting events at the school, the majority of which were sports related, came over the years. About the only negative was that when he graduated in 2016, the free flow of videos stopped.

 

Although he occasionally has provided one in his free time since heading to college, the gravy train for Connect-Bridgeport ended. The good news for Marra – and his new school – is that the train has taken off from a new station.

 

The sophomore at the University of South Carolina, who is studying accounting with a minor in sports management, has gotten into the ground floor of a program that is heavy on sports and – yes – video packaging.

 

Marra is not only studying at the school in Columbia, SC, he’s also an intern there for a program called New and Creative Media. He’s working for Justin King, an associate athletic director as well as the director of the New and Creative Media Department, who was hired to start the department in January of 2017.

 

“This department’s mission statement is to put out content that will help draw recruits to help South Carolina win championships across all sports,” said Marra. “This is the first year of the department.”

 

That doesn’t mean that Marra didn’t know about it during his freshman year. Although technically not in existence, until this school year, it was already being formed while Marra was a frosh. In fact, he learned about it while reading a statewide news publication.

 

“There was an article about (King) creating the program and, to be honest, I was kind of looking to get back into doing media stuff with photo and video,” said Marra. “I actually thought I wouldn’t ever be doing that again after I graduated.”

 

The article, at a minimum, changed that thinking. Marra assumed King would need interns. And if he did, it was going to be an opportunity to get back involved with the media on the sports front in the digital format he was familiar with from BHS.

 

“I reached out to him with a random email by finding it online,” said Marra. “I sent him some of the stuff that I did for Connect-Bridgeport as well as some of the stuff I did for the high school. I was hoping that he’d get back to me and he did.”

 

Marra said a meeting was set up to discuss possibilities. From there, King gave the green light to an internship for the Bridgeport resident and Marra was back in the game.

 

“He’s given me the opportunity to do something that I really love to do,” said Marra, who is part of about a half dozen interns and a staff of two full-time employees in the department. “What’s really unique is that this is new and we’re still trying to figure out everything and it is working.”

 

This past season, Marra got rolling with football. His work was largely behind the scenes, but his work included graphics that appeared on the scoreboard at Williams-Brice Stadium in front of capacity crowds of 80,000 people.

 

While he admits seeing that was pretty cool, his first day as an intern with King was even a little more impressive.

 

“He took me to the football building because he had to get (USC Football) Coach (Will) Muschamp’s approval to use a drone. That was my first day and I got to meet Coach Muschamp, which kind of stood out and let me know that what the department was doing was pretty big time,” said Marra. “I realized really fast that I was going to be around these types of athletic people on a daily basis.”

 

While football was a lot of enjoyable work, basketball – under former Bob Huggins assistant Frank Martin – has been up front and center with much of Marra’s time.

 

“I took a bigger role when basketball started because Justin was still involved with football and they needed video for basketball. I was the main guy in the preseason,” said Marra. “I ended up getting to travel to several places such as New York City and the University of Georgia for basketball and be around players and coaches and have access to everything.”

 

Understand, what Marra is working on in the department isn’t your standard video fare. Instead, he calls it more of a “cinematic recap.” He said what you see aren’t simply the highlights.

 

“We’re capturing the atmosphere and the fans. It’s unconventional … I’ve actually shot games standing in the crowd with the fans or standing at places along sidelines that no one else can get to,” said Marra. “It’s not shot as sports, but with the cinematic look. It’s shot like a movie. There’s a big difference.”

 

And Marra, a baseball junkie, has also had a chance to do some baseball work. He recently was involved with a Clemson-South Carolina game in a work capacity he never thought would happen.

 

“It’s wild that it’s happened. It’s a dream come true because I truly thought those days were over. To get this opportunity from Justin has been out of this world,” said Marra.

 

As much as Marra is enjoying the internship, it’s not strictly for fun. He hopes to potentially parlay his passion with his studies into a potential career. In fact, he said this opportunity has opened up career paths he didn’t think existed before.

 

“My plan is to continue with this straight out of school and do some media producing. I’d like to end up as an associate athletic director or an athletic director at a college or university,” said Marra. “The accounting and sports management on top of this should help me get there if I work hard enough.”

 

Of course, having a full slate of college courses on top of doing work as an intern focusing on college athletics in multiple sports can be challenging for anyone. Marra, however, said he was prepared for it.

 

“I’m really glad I’m not overwhelmed by it, but it was challenging at first because I had gotten into a rhythm my first year of just being a student. I was able to balance things as a student-athlete when playing baseball at Bridgeport so I just followed the same steps there and it’s worked out,” said Mara. “I feel good about my studies and that it will lead me to a career, but right now I’m hoping this will lead me into a career in athletics.”

 

If that happens, you’ll either read about Ross Marra or see his work on a scoreboard of social media platform for years to come. And if you want to find his earliest work, you can always search for it on Connect-Bridgeport.

 

Best of luck Ross. Here’s hoping we see your work soon on a national scale.

 

Editor's Note: First and third photo show Ross Marra in his new element at the University of South Carolina, while he's shown with his father Robert and mother Diana in the second photo. Bottom photo shows Marra during his time with the Bridgeport High School baseball team. Bottom photo by www.benqueenphotography.com.