12-Year-Old West Wilks Shines as Future Sportscaster, Wins ABC’s Junior Sportscaster Contest

By Dominic Scianna

West Wilks is not your typical 12-year-old.

The Lenart Regional Gifted Center seventh-grader is into golf, featuring a few impressive hole-in-ones, speaks Spanish, has his own conversational language podcast, plays basketball for his school and is even interested in mechanical engineering.

Oh, and by the way, he just won ABC-TV Chicago’s “Junior Sportscaster” contest, a state-wide competition.

Hundreds entered the contest, ranging from teenagers to adolescents, with more than 3,400 votes counted. The winner got the opportunity to appear with ABC-TV’s sports lead, Ryan Chiaverini and do an actual live sports broadcast on December 8 during the evening news.

“I did it in one take and they started calling me ‘One Take West,’” said Wilks. “It was so much fun. I got to go over the scripts with Ryan, read from the teleprompter, and they even had me put makeup on. I kind of felt like I was a movie star. It was pretty cool.”

Mom and dad, Carmen and Kevin Wilks, always knew their son had potential because of his outgoing personality and ease and comfort with public speaking.

“He’s very comfortable in a lot of spaces,” Carmen said. “He’s a gentleman, he’s a funny kid, and has a main character energy. He’s also fearless because that’s the kind of personality he has. You know when he’s in the room. We’re very proud of him.”

Another bigger-than-life personality that West admires is Hall of Famer and former New York Giants football star, Michael Strahan, now a featured anchor on ABC’s “Good Morning America” and NFL veteran sportscaster, who is one of his idols, along with Shaquille O’Neal, another towering presence and former player turned sportscaster on ESPN’s studio coverage of the NBA.

Proud father Kevin said when he saw the advertisement for the contest, he thought his teenage daughter Kanyn and West could do that and helped to make the opportunity a reality by sending in separate videotaped entries for his children.

“I couldn’t believe he had won when we got the e-mail (from ABC-TV),” said Kevin. “I kept it to myself because I wanted it to be a surprise – but I couldn’t for very long. I informed his school and they made an announcement about it (to the students).”

Now that West has had a taste of success with sportscasting, and with high school a few years away, he’s thinking of continuing his journey and looking into schools with his parents that may offer broadcasting opportunities.

His parents knew big things were ahead for both of their children right from the start. Kanyn, now 16, and thriving at Lindblom High School, and West, who may have had it in him all along, starting from the womb.

“I started reading to West (during Carmen’s pregnancy) before he was born, and we continued speaking and forming sentences with him when he was very young. We always knew he had it in him (for something special),” added Kevin.

The following is a photo gallery of our day with West recently at Lenart Grammar School.

Click Here Check Out West’s Sportscast with ABC 7 !