Unlike Hans Waters’ three Emmy’s, life hasn’t come to him in a box. Instead, Mahomet native Hans Waters has taken his talent by the helm with confidence and steered his ship into the light that presented him three Emmys (that did arrive on his doorstep in a box).
A freelance video editor, Waters began his career under the guidance of his father, Larry Waters, who worked as a production manager at WICD and WCIA for many years. Waters said when his father took him into the station as a child he was mesmerized by all the screens and buttons.
“I thought, ‘I don’t know what this is, but this is what I’m going to do,” he recollected. “I have a note in my lockbox that I wrote in the eighth grade, but was given to me when I graduated high school. I wrote that I was going to go to Southern Illinois and to into broadcasting. I’ve only met a few people in my life whose lives are like this.”
After graduating from Mahomet-Seymour High School, Waters attended Parkland College for three years while he worked in the Carle AV department, with Prairie Productions and with the 10 p.m. news at Channel 15. A year out of high school, Waters was traveling with the University of Illinois football program.
Waters said that he took every opportunity that was presented to him, no matter what hour of the day or night.
With editing experience under his belt, Waters went on to Southern Illinois University to study broadcasting. He worked for an ABC affiliate, running cuts for the ends of the Good Morning America Show. He also edited for WSIU and ran replays for hockey playoffs in St. Louis.
Making a great impression on his supervisor, Waters was asked to move to DC with his new wife six weeks after graduating from college. But his career really took off two years later when they moved to Nashville. Just three hours away from sports hubs such as Knoxville, Memphis, Birmingham, Chattanooga, and Louisville, among other cities, Waters became the go-to local video editor for athletic events.
As many of his competitors took corporate jobs, Waters’ freelance status kept him available to take opportunities in the collegiate and professional arenas. When technology changed in the mid-90’s, his ability to edit and his spirit to learn new devices led him a career-changing opportunity.
Waters relationship with CBS put him working the NCAA basketball tournament on the day the Iraq War broke. CBS sold all of their material that day to ESPN where Bob Dekas and Bob Fishman were directing the tournament. Waters was working with the CBS A crew that day, but the A crew did not bring their editor who could run the EVS machine that day.
At the time, many broadcasting networks were using the EVS machine as a server, but with Waters behind the helm, he was able to take multiple shots from multiple angles to produce clips Fishman and Dekas had never seen before.
Waters received a call the next day saying Dekas and Fishman wanted him to be on the team of any job they directed in the future. That next week Waters was working the Sweet Sixteen and then went on to work during the Final Four.
Dekas and Fishman brought Waters into editing football clips. As one of approximately a dozen people who could use the EVS machine for five or six years, Waters began working both Sunday and Monday night NFL football games.
In 2008, Waters caught wind of an editor who bowed out of shooting the Olympics in Bejing a few days before they started. He called NBC, which he had never worked for, and put his name in.
“If I had called two weeks before, I wouldn’t have had it,” he said. “Even the producers changed at the last minute. I had a window, and once again, I was at the right place at the right time. If you sit and watch (life) it will never happen.”
While Waters has loved editing sports for television, it is not a love a sports that drives him.
“I won’t deny that I find fascination in great moments,” he said. “I got to see (Usain) Bolt run the 200-meters in China as a fan. That was epic. You could feel it. You feel it in certain moments, at certain games; ‘Wow, I just saw something really cool.’ But there is a lot of waiting to get to that point.”
Waters was awarded his first Emmy for his work during the 2008 Olympics. His second came after the 2011 X Games. He gave that Emmy to his parents.
“I won the parent lotto,” he said. “If it weren’t for my dad and mom, this wouldn’t have happened. That’s why my second one went to them.”
Waters won his third Emmy for his work during the 50th Super Bowl in 2016. He gave this Emmy to his children, Dante and Alena.
“I have a love-hate relationship with sports,” he continued. “I could care less who is playing. I have a real problem with people who lose their minds. I’ve seen what it does to people and to families. Some people get so upset that their whole week is literally blown.”
Instead, Waters said, we could focus on other things. An Eagle Scout in high school, he understands the importance of taking care of the Earth. So, he picks up trash. Sometimes, he said, he’ll do social experiments, though, where he will leave an obvious piece of trash to see if someone will pick it up. The next day, it’s likely still in the same spot.
“Sometimes you have to realize no one else is going to do it,” he said. “Great people didn’t get a que from something; you’ve just got to decide to do it.”
That’s what he hopes Mahomet-Seymour students will see when they pass his Emmys, which are being displayed in the Mahomet-Seymour High School trophy case.
An active high school student who participated in cross country, marching band, drama, Eagle Scouts and cheerleading (because he and his friends “got the crowd riled up”), Waters hopes Mahomet-Seymour students will see the Emmys and know that they, too, can decide to reach their goals.
After congratulating Coach Garrison on winning the IHSA State Tournament in Cross Country this year, Waters reminisced on his days of running cross country and not reaching his goal of winning State.
But he also said, “the Beatles weren’t the Beatles until they learned their craft.”
“You’ve got to work towards something,” he said.
Waters said he never dreamed of winning an Emmy until one of his friends won one for similar work. Now a three-time Emmy winner, Waters sees that it was the time he spent editing in the middle of the night was what led him to perfect his craft.
And just like his parents planted seeds of greatness in him, Waters hopes to plant those same seeds in his children.
He said he tries to teach his children the same lessons his parents taught him: to stand up straight, shake hands, look people in the eyes and set your expectations high. Waters feels that gave him the confidence to reach out to the people who helped advance his career.
“I’m so proud to see the same drive and accomplishments that I had being handed down to my kids,” he said. “Dante is an Eagle Scout and is a powerful force for the swim team and Alena being on the honor roll and captain in color guard this year. “
