Are You Prepared for When Disaster Strikes?

During a basketball broadcast earlier this month, ESPN’s Holly Rowe heard what would seemingly be terrifying words for a sideline reporter.

“We don’t have Dan or Jay. Talk!”

Rowe, a veteran at the network who typically provides behind-the-scenes reports, was suddenly asked to do play-by-play commentary during the Gonzaga-West Virginia game after the audio of announcers Dan Shulman and Jay Bilas cut out.

It would’ve been understandable if Rowe had been paralyzed by the moment and stumbled on player names and descriptions of the on-court action.

But she wasn’t. She instead filled in smoothly over the next few minutes, almost as if she’d been expecting something like this to happen.

After the game, Rowe revealed that in some ways, she had. She tweeted a picture of her meticulous game notes that she had at the ready for a worst-case scenario.

Rowe has been at ESPN for over 20 years, and it would seem safe to say that the vast majority of the broadcasts she’s worked have gone off without a hitch. And yet, here she was, not taking this assignment for granted, not falling back on her past accomplishments, not dismissing the possibility that something could go very wrong.

It was a pivotal lesson that begs some questions of us.

Are we prepared today for a worst-case scenario tomorrow? How much work are we putting in in non-pressure moments to be ready when the spotlight is on? Will we rise to the occasion if we’re suddenly called on and expected to do something that we never have?

We’d be wise in the coming days to spend more time thinking through and planning our responses to what seem like unlikely events but could derail us entirely should they occur.

Disaster will eventually strike. We just don’t know in what form.

When it does, we can throw our hands in the air in frustration and get completely flustered or we can grab the mic the way Rowe did and act like we were anticipating this all along.

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