Coronavirus NC: No sports means no income for Duke play-by-play broadcaster

DURHAM, N.C. (WTVD) -- Chris Edwards doesn't want or expect your sympathy. After all, as he says, "how lucky are we to work in sports!"

He certainly warrants your good thoughts though. As of last Thursday, when all sports essentially went dark, so too did his livelihood. Edwards is a freelance broadcaster who calls the games for Duke baseball and women's basketball, among countless other sports for the ACC digital network. With no games for the foreseeable future, he's got no income for the foreseeable future.

"I don't know what's next or where any money's coming from or what I'm going to do," he said. "I mean I'm fortunate that I've got a great support system with family being in the area but you don't know what's going to happen."

COMPLETE COVERAGE OF THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC

Edwards' wife works for the NCHSAA, so he thankfully has health insurance through her, but beyond that, there's a whole bunch of uncertainty ahead.

"For a lot of people I think in this position, there's not a nest egg," he said. "I don't know that we're going to have any college athletics until we get to the fall and so now you're thinking OK, how do I get through this week? How do I get through next month but what happens, three, four months from now, when we don't know if there's anything?"

Edwards described the days since Thursday as a grieving period for his job and his passion. A possible silver lining - others in similar shoes have been reaching out to each other to share their thoughts.

"Yeah, I think that's been the best and most encouraging thing so far is just how all of the guys that are freelance sports broadcasters have come together on Twitter and on Instagram and other social media just to say hey, let's use this as a time to get better as a time to share tapes and critique each other's work, and hopefully this becomes a great professional development for a lot of people," he said.

Edwards said Duke has reached out and promised to help as much as it can. Still, aside from the missing money, the greatest challenge may be filling up his days productively and not getting into a rut.

"It's just kind of figuring out what is today going to be and not sitting around and feeling sorry for yourself because I think by doing that you're not doing yourself a favor you're doing a disservice to your family to your friends because there's no point in all of us feeling bad for ourselves when there are people that are a lot worse off than we are," Edwards said.