After long nights and international flights, Del Val substitute and alumna Ellis Stanton won an Emmy for her work covering the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.
Credited as an NBC Content Associate, Stanton won the award for an “Outstanding Live Special – Championship Event” at the 46th Sports Emmy Awards. She was also nominated for “Outstanding Digital Innovation” as an Assistant Producer with NBC’s Madden NFL Cast commentary.
Stanton, who graduated from Del Val in 2018, was the first-ever senior producer of the TV Media program. She took the class all four years of high school in addition to an independent study her senior year. Her dedication was clear from the beginning.
“She came to my class every single day for lunch,” Billy Gregson, Del Val’s TV Media teacher, said. “This is where she found out this is where she wants to go, this is what she wants to do.”
At first, Stanton never had broadcasting in mind as a career path.
“I always thought I was gonna go into a science field,” Stanton said. “I thought I was gonna be a pharmacist, and then I took TV Media as an elective, and I did it more because it was a hobby for me. I always had a camera in my hand since I was a little kid.”
The higher she worked her way up in the program, the stronger her desire grew to pursue broadcasting. Stanton heard of Gregson’s history in the field as former producer for the Fox News channel in the 2000s, and she realized this could be more than a hobby. Her junior year, Stanton set her sights on her higher education.
“In my junior year I knew I wanted to go to Syracuse University, study journalism and I wanted to do live sports,” Stanton said.
At Syracuse, Stanton received a bachelor’s degree in broadcasting in digital journalism and a master’s in television, radio and film. Within the same month of her masters graduation, Aug. 2023, Stanton started working at NBC.
Stanton was brought onto NBC for the football season, covering the Big Ten, a college football alliance. As the months continued, Stanton’s contract was extended into the winter season covering college basketball. It was then that Olympic Games coverage became a possibility for her.
“…Everyone had told me ‘If you’re here next summer, you’re working on the Olympics.’” Stanton said. “In December of 2023, I got a call from someone from HR, and they wanted to speak to me about my Olympics assignment.”
During the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, sports broadcasting streamlined its efforts to have the least amount of people traveling amidst COVID-19. As a cost-cutting measure, they have continued this practice, meaning almost all Olympics coverage is produced in Stamford, CT. Only three sports, Track & Field, Swimming and Gymnastics, have crews on site to cover them. As a first-time Olympics reporter, Stanton had no expectation of traveling to France.
“[HR told me] ‘Okay, so, it looks like you’re going to be located in Stade de France,’ and I was like ‘Are you sure?’ because everyone told me that I was gonna be here,” Stanton said.
Stanton stayed in France for two weeks covering the Track & Field events. Prior to the Games, Stanton’s work included reaching out for family photos, videos of runners in high school or other background information. During the Games, Stanton and her team were responsible for turnaround edits.
“[Turnaround edits are] Taking the live show and cutting it down into smaller segments to send back to the U.S. for prime time at 8 p.m.,” Stanton said. “Our live shows were, like, three hours long, but we would only send… six [six-to-eight-minute] segments back… We only had six hours to turn it around and send it back because of the time difference.”
Following the Olympics, Stanton continued to work for NBC until March 2025. It was widely known that NBC would receive nominations for their work at the Olympics, but who would be listed as contributors remained a mystery. On the night of May 20, Stanton sat down to watch the ceremony in anticipation.
“…I’m sitting at home, I’m watching it with my parents, and I told them ‘Oh, I’m nominated for this,’ but I didn’t actually know if I was,” Stanton said. “I was assuming and hoping I was. We’re watching it, and NBC wins and my parents are freaking out, like, ‘Oh my gosh, you won an Emmy!’ and I’m like, ‘I don’t know if I actually won an Emmy!'”
After searching online for the playbill, Stanton searched the list of names for her own, and when she found it the celebrations could begin.
“I’m really proud of all the help that I’ve received to get to this point,” Stanton said. “It means so much to me to see my mentors, my friends, my parents happy for me and congratulating me.”
Included in those congratulations was Gregson, who has continued to keep in contact with Stanton over the past seven years.
“She literally texted me, ‘I won an Emmy,’ and I’m like, ‘What? Nice!'” Gregson said. “We have this ongoing joke where my highest compliment is ‘Who’s better? No one,’ so, after she won that, I sent her ‘Who’s better?’ because no one is [better than her].”
Stanton’s broadcast dreams began at Del Val, and she hopes to see the program’s continued success. In addition to substitute teaching, Stanton spoke at the 2025 Hunterdon County Student Media Convention. She hopes her success and experiences will inspire potential broadcast students. According to Stanton, prospective journalists should look at others instead of themselves.
“I think the best journalists are the biggest wallflowers: people who observe and understand things,” Stanton said. “If you’re trying to be the center of attention, you’re not being a good journalist, because you’re reporting on things. Being able to see everything that’s going on and evaluate that, I think is one of the biggest assets for an aspiring journalist.”
Stanton’s Olympic experience was unlike many starting in their first year at NBC, but it resulted in some of her best memories.
“Everyone always said that your first Olympics are special, but the fact that I got to go [to France], I won an Emmy and I was with a great crew just made it even more special.”
This story was originally published on The Delphi on September 6, 2025.