A different person from Charlotte Latin Athletics is featured on the first Tuesday of each month with twenty questions to help the CLS community get to know some of our athletes, coaches, and supporters a bit better.

Our September interview is with Joe Teets, who joined the CLS staff as a math teacher and a member of the athletic support staff in 2021. During the school day, he teaches geometry and pre-calc, but in the afternoons and evenings you’ll find him announcing lineups, setting up livestreams, and teaching students all the tech and technique involved in sports broadcasting. Read on to get to know the voice behind Hawks Media Production:  

1. Where did you grow up and what was your childhood like?
Childhood was very busy. I grew up in Connellsville, PA, an hour south of Pittsburg. I was constantly involved in activities, including little league baseball, midget football, church league basketball, youth group, and Boy Scouts. I did as many sports as I could growing up. And I was in choir and band.

2. You were in band? What did you play?
I played the trombone from fourth grade through high school, but haven’t touched it once since. I was in the jazz band, the orchestra and the marching band. I enjoyed it. We went to Florida one year and marched in a parade at Disney, which was a good time.   

3. While you were busy doing a million activities, what was the rest of your family up to?
My dad did various jobs over the years, including working as a security guard at a hospital and as an auto parts salesman. My mom always had a lot of different things going on, in addition to taking care of us. She was the renaissance woman of jobs. My brother, Justin, is eight years younger than me. I remember being excited about getting a baby brother, but because of the age gap we didn’t really become close until after I graduated from college. He was always around at my activities though, and he followed in my footsteps with sports and other things.

4. Did you hone in on one particular sport as you got older?
I stopped playing basketball and football after ninth grade. Baseball was (and still is) my passion. I was playing on a club team and that schedule conflicted with the school team, plus there were a couple of guys ahead of me on the depth chart. So I played tennis for my high school. In my senior year, I was 20-0 with my doubles partner going into playoffs. During our match in the first round, I jumped up to make a serve and came down wrong and sprained my ankle. I stuck it out through the match, but I couldn’t really move and that was our first loss. I was very, very upset about that one. My partner was a freshman, so it didn’t affect him quite as much, but I was so disappointed.

5. Did you ever have aspirations to play sports in college?
I would’ve loved to try to play collegiate baseball. The summer between my junior and senior years of high school, I was planning to try out for a walk-on position in college, but then I was making a play at the plate and a runner came in and took out my knee, and that sort of ended those aspirations.

6. How did you choose where to go to college and what to study?  
It was a big priority of my parents for my brother and I to go to college. Neither of them had gone, and they knew we would have a lot more opportunities if we got a degree. We didn’t have a lot of money, though, so finances definitely played a part in my decision and I only applied to a few in-state schools because of that. I decided to go to the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown and initially thought I’d do a couple of years there and then transfer to the main Pitt campus, but I fell in love with it from the beginning. I got a job working for the SID (sports information director) in my freshman year, then I joined a fraternity during sophomore year, and eventually was the student government president my senior year. I was very involved. My intentions about my major changed along the way too. I started off planning to be a cop or work in law enforcement, but my grandmother had a lot of anxiety about me being in that profession and encouraged me to look at other options. She influenced me to change my major to education, and the earlier influence of my high school calculus teacher was the reason I chose to focus on math.

7. What was it about your calculus teacher that made such an impact?
He was just a down-to-earth person who was really interested in developing us as people. He takes his AP calculus class on a spelunking trip in Laurel Caverns every year that was awesome. We had a very good relationship and I would always go back and see him when I was visiting my hometown. 

8. Alright, so you graduated college, which was a big deal for your family. Then what?   
The girl I was dating at the time was going to George Mason for grad school, so I followed her to DC and started looking for math teaching positions. I got a job at Bullis School teaching pre-calc and algebra II, and also coaching as an assistant on the varsity football and baseball teams. After six years, I was starting to experience a bit of teacher burnout, but the athletic teams at the time were absolutely booming. I thought with my experience of working with the SID in college that I could help in that area, and the school had just invested in a massive jumbotron in the stadium which opened up some great opportunities. I wrote out a job description for an SID job and presented it to the headmaster. I started handling logistics for teams, creating and managing the athletics website, and serving as a liaison for college coaches. At the time, Dwayne Haskins was a 5-star recruit and there are three current NFL players who were at Bullis then. We had national champions in lacrosse, track athletes setting national records. There was a lot going on and it was so much fun, but the hours were crazy.

9. How did the student broadcasting group get started at Bullis?
Students are required to do activities and so when I created the sports broadcasting group it provided an opportunity for kids to meet that requirement in a new way. We had about twelve kids, but they didn’t all do every season. With the big jumbotron, we had to use multiple cameras and we taught the kids how to do instant replays. We created promos with the bulldog mascot, like cool little commercial pieces. I had another adult staff member helping out and he is a phenomenal video guy, so he was great at that stuff. 

10. What was most challenging and most rewarding about that experience?   
It was challenging and exciting to learn how to do all of the technical stuff to put on a successful broadcast and run the jumbotron content. I had a lot of internal motivation that made the challenges feel less challenging, if that makes sense. I knew from the beginning that it was making an impact – literally from the very first livestream. It was a field hockey game and we were sort of testing things out, but I told the parents in the stands that we were trying it and shared the link with them. Afterwards, one of the fathers came up to me and thanked me. He was emotional about it. He’d shared the link with his own father in Florida and it was the first time his dad had gotten to see his daughter play. I realized right then how much of an impact it could have on people. It’s a really cool way to extend your community.  

11. It sounds like you loved what you were doing and things were going well, right? So what prompted you to move back into teaching?   
Five years into it, and it was running like clockwork. I had a steady influx of kids, and several of them went on to major schools to be broadcasters. And then, Covid. March of 2020. We went fully remote and all sports stopped. My job then was creating videos and presentations to be able to celebrate the teams and the seniors that were losing their season. We all thought it would be just a couple of weeks. Then a couple more weeks. Until we finally realized we were in for a long-term situation. We got a new headmaster that summer and there was a lot of confusion in our conference since there are schools in Maryland, Virginia and DC, all with their own protocols and restrictions. I got the news August 12^th that my position in athletics was no longer needed, so I went back to teaching full time as a middle school math resource teacher.

12. Some things had also changed for you personally during that time, correct?
Yes, I got engaged! Megan and I met online, actually, and were communicating for a while but because of my sports schedule it took us several months to get a date on the calendar. When we did finally have an in-person date, we hit it off great and the rest is history. We got engaged on Fathers’ Day 2020, and we got married June 19, 2021, in Knoxville, TN. Then we moved to Charlotte and I started my new job at Latin about a month later.

13. What made you apply for, and ultimately accept, your role at Latin?
We were looking to move out of the DC area, but wanted to stay on the East Coast. I actually reached out to the Hudl rep I worked with at Bullis and asked for a list of schools that were using it, and one of the names I recognized right away was Charlotte Latin. I first became aware of CLS when the wrestling team competed at a tournament Bullis hosted and the athletes and coaches had made a great impression on all of us. Then I had conversations with you (Angel Trimble) over the phone, again through the Hudl connection, so I’d had these positive interactions with people from Latin. When we came down to visit the campus, we met Carol Webb-G and got to see the dynamic of the athletic admin team, and it just felt right. Then it spoke volumes that I was interviewing for a job Doc (Ken Collins) held for fifty years, and I met Pete (McEachern) and Jeff (Knull), and they have all been here forever. That made a big impression that these people had such longevity in their jobs. It spoke to the culture and community aspect of Latin. 

14. Your job here is a hybrid position. You’re back in the classroom and you work in athletics, filling a number of roles but most notably starting and running Hawks Media Production, the student broadcasting group. How are you liking it so far?   
I truly love working with kids in both the classroom and in the broadcast work. Having a connection with them outside of the classroom can create so many opportunities. Someone may be reserved in the classroom, but talk your ear off in the field. Or maybe they’re at ease in class but pushing themselves to do something outside of their comfort zone through broadcasting. It’s really fulfilling to introduce kids to new things, and help with their growth and development. I think it’s really helpful for teachers to be involved in other aspects of school life, because it ultimately pays dividends in the classroom when you can draw on those connections.

15. Do you have any specific goals for Hawks Media Production this year?     
We started Hawks Media Production this time last year and, for me, I had to spend the year sort of learning about the culture, the environment, and how to get things started. I was happy with our work but also saw a lot of opportunities for improvement and growth. This year, I’m already loving it. We have ten students so far and seeing their desire to try new things is exciting and inspiring. I’m introducing some of them to sports they’re not familiar with, and new skills. Seeing kids attracted to HMP that never had any inkling that this was an interest of theirs work with some kids that have been fostering this interest for a while, it makes me confident that it’s going to grow. The main goal is to create an experience that the kids are excited to come back to next year, and to continue to broaden our reach into the CLS community that exists beyond our campus.

16. Let’s finish up with some fun questions. Who is a sports figure you admire?
Roberto Clemente. He was an old school Pittsburgh Pirate in the 60s and 70s when they won the series a couple of times. One of the best players ever, but in 1972, in the prime of his career (he got his 3,000^th hit that year), he died in a plane crash flying to Nicaragua to assist with earthquake relief. 

17. Do you have any pets?
Two dogs: Crosby and Piper. Crosby is 14 and is a black lab, German shepherd mix. I got him when he was a tiny puppy. And Piper is still a puppy – she was born last January. She’s a multigenerational golden doddle.

18. What’s one talent or ability that you don’t have that you wish you did?
I wish I had a photographic memory. I have a couple of friends that have it and I’m jealous of the stuff they remember. It would be very helpful.

19. If time or money were no issue, where would you travel?
To the top 100 golf courses in the world.

20. What has been your favorite Latin sports memory so far? 
I was at Charlotte Christian last year when the football team won on the last-second field goal. Seeing the excitement of the team and the rush of students and other supporters onto the field. That was a really cool moment.  

Editor's Note: You can view the weekly streaming schedule on our website here. 

Joe with his parents and scoutmaster as he earned his Eagle Scout 

 Joe and Megan's wedding day. From l-r: Cally Alewine (Megan' sister), Marty Alewine (Megan's father), Cindy Alewine (Megan's mother), Megan, Joe, Jackson Baysinger (Joe's nephew), Theresa Teets (Joe's mother), Bill Teets (Joe's father), Vienna (Niece), Justin Teets (Joe's brother), Shanna Teets (Joe's sister-in-law)

Joe Teets announcing a varsity boys' soccer game in August 2022

The Hawks Media Production crew for the September 2, 2022 broadcast of the varsity football game vs. Metrolina Christian Academy