One might find themselves stumbling upon the sports portion of a newscast on Local Five after a day of leisure or work and recognizing Indianola-local and Simpson College alumnus Jake Brend anchoring or telling Iowa’s sports stories. Brend, who graduated from Simpson in 2023, started working for Local Five as a senior in 2022. His hard work and dedication to his craft earned him the National Sports Media Association (NSMA) 2024 Iowa Sports Broadcaster of the Year award.
“I thought it was a sick joke [winning the award],” Jake Brend said.
The award has two levels: the nomination process, which opened on Oct. 15 and closed on Nov. 15, and the final ballot voting process, which opened on Dec. 1 and closed on Dec. 31. Members of the NSMA nominated up to five people each for state sportscaster of the year,
state sportswriter of the year, national sportscaster of the year and national sportswriter of the year.
For the state awards, the top vote-getters (plus ties) are placed on the final ballot, along with those added by the NSMA’s voting committee. Members are then emailed the final ballot and told to make their selections for their state, as well as national and Hall of Fame categories.
Alongside Brend on the ballot for Iowa Sports Broadcaster of the Year were Keith Murphy, John Walters and Shannon Ehrhardt.
“To even be in the group of those people was pretty incredible,” Brend said. “I’m a competitor. I want to win, but at the end of the day, I don’t [want to win], I’m fine just being in that company. So, when I won, it was a lot of emotion. I was very thankful and very happy to even be in consideration and to win.”
Brend will receive his award in late June during a ceremony in Winston-Salem, NC.
Landing the Local Five job
Brend ending up at Local Five was the result of cards falling into place. During one of the summers Brend interned for WHO-13, he talked to someone in his current job and asked, “When are you getting out of the business?” The other reporter told Brend this was his last day and that he would be moving to Alabama soon since his wife got a job there.
“It definitely planted a seed and opened my eyes,” Brend said. He started checking LinkedIn constantly, eventually saw the job opening, and applied, but he didn’t hear anything for a month.
“I figured they’d be crazy to hire somebody that’s still in college anyways, but I figured I’d do it. And then a month later, my now boss, who was working as a one-person sports department, she got sick during a very important week, and they realized we’ve got to hire somebody quick,” Brend said. “There’s no more quick hire than someone who is already living 20 minutes away, and I was able to land at Local Five as a full-time college student.”
Working at Local Five
Brend’s work differs from day to day. His day could include attending an Iowa or Iowa State football or basketball game or a Drake basketball game. It could consist of going to high school sports or state tournaments. Many of his Sundays consist of being in the studio all day editing highlights and recapping the previous week.
“That’s the good part about my job is it’s not a typical desk job,” Brend said.
Brend has loved being able to cover NCAA tournaments. “If there’s any time where I kind of fell in love with wanting to be an announcer or wanting to be in sports, it was probably watching the NCAA tournament as a kid,” Brend said.
He covered the Iowa State men in Omaha and Boston and the Iowa women in the Final Four in Cleveland.
“Those experiences are ones that I’ll never forget. And though those days are long, you wake up early, you stay up late working, they’re the days you look back on,” Brend said.
Brend also loves going to the Hilton Coliseum, where he grew up watching the Cyclones.
“I can see my parents in the stands, the seat where I grew up sitting in, and now I get to do what I’ve been dreaming of. I sometimes have to take a deep breath and be like, wow, that’s pretty cool,” Brend said.
Being “recruited” by Simpson
Brend almost didn’t end up at Simpson. Instead, he had paperwork signed, a roommate set up and everything else ready to go for Iowa State. Before the withdrawal deadline, Professor Lisa Carponelli and Brian Gillen, the previous sports information director, contacted him.
“They called me into their office and recruited me like I was an athlete because I’d already taken a couple of visits to Simpson, and I was interested, but at the end of the day, I wanted that bigger school experience,” Brend said.
Despite always wanting to go to Iowa State, the idea of being able to do play-by-plays and work for the student newspaper on day one helped Brend decide to switch to Simpson. During his first year, he started writing feature stories and sharpening his skills, which helped him land internships down the road. Internships turned into leadership positions in student media, including being in charge of SCTV.
“I felt like I was working 40-hour weeks, except I wasn’t getting paid much. I was doing the day-to-day job that I’m doing now, but doing it for Simpson and definitely doing it with mistakes in there,” Brend said. “But I was able to make those mistakes, grow from them, and get to the spot where I was able to get a full-time job.”
Brend’s advice to aspiring sports broadcasters
“Do everything you possibly can,” Brend said. “Whether you’re an intern or whether you’re a student, you’re not going to be the voice of the football team. It just doesn’t happen. But you could be the beat reporter for the golf team. And those reps, whether you’re covering a sport you don’t care about or whether you’re covering the NBA, those reps at the end of the day are the same. So the amount of reps you get, don’t limit it and don’t limit the amount of hours you pour into this.”
Looking into the future
Brend sees himself staying in this media ecosystem and central Iowa for a long time.
“I don’t know what the future of media looks like or what the future of specifically sports media looks like, but I know that I’ll be in it,” Brend said. “I have aspirations. I don’t know if my aspirations are getting on ESPN like they were, maybe when I was in high school, but I love Des Moines. I love central Iowa. The more I tell the stories of central Iowa and cover the stuff in Iowa that people are passionate about, I think I’ll be there for a long time.”