Sports Media Report
“An NBC Camps Story” is a new documentary series where inspirational campers and coaches within NBC Camps teach students and parents about life through living examples. The series premiered on Thursday, October 18, 2018, the one-year anniversary of the accident. The first episode featured the tragic triumph of Ana Wakefield, a Multinomah (Ore.) University basketball player, who suffered a hit-and-run that required five brain surgeries.
Wakefield a former NBC Basketball camper, was in a horrific, head-on traffic collision that left her on the verge of death. For 10 days, doctors were losing hope she would live. Five brain surgeries later, Ana awoke and found her life had been reset. Before the accident, Ana was a high school valedictorian, 4.0 student, and sophomore college basketball player living on her own and loving life. After the accident, she had to relearn to walk, talk, and dress herself. She went from a fully independent, thriving adult to a person in need of constant care. Because of her rigorous work ethic, personal faith, and a never-quit attitude, Ana has beaten the odds and is even starting to shoot and play basketball again.
Despite intense suffering, Ana is grateful to God for many aspects of the wreck and believes that her story has a purpose. NBC Camps highlights, in this 6-minute video, the specific ways Ana’s self-discipline, determination, faith, and gratitude have given her the ability to do the impossible.
NBC Camps believes in the importance of positive storytelling in the midst of tremendous national friction and emotional instability. NBC Camps has conducted summer camps for almost 50 years and believe based on their experience that high school and middle school athletes are facing more and more stress at home as well as pressures from substance abuse, parent/peer expectations and depression. than ever before.
NBC Camps desires that many will be inspired by this new story series. NBC Camps Chief Operations Officer Jennifer Ferch shares, “Stories change us, and they are some of our greatest teachers. We can return again and again to a powerful story to remind us, inspire us, and move us toward the way we desire to live. Ana’s story certainly does this. As a sports educational company, NBC Camps wants to use stories to emphasize lessons and training sessions all year round. All of us have faced a challenge where we wonder if we will be able to overcome, and this story gives us a living example to have hope and to fight like Ana.”
