How did an 18-year-old college student in Maryland gain the trust of and get access to TV executives and anchors in New York? “By posting 10 or 15 posts a day meant that the industry knew it was a reliable consistent source,” says Brian Stelter, creator of this site and now a media reporter for the New York Times and author of the just released “Top of the Morning.”

As he neared graduation, Stelter had to make a choice: work in TV news, or cover it.

• Part I: Stelter on Being Matt Lauer’s “nemesis”

If it seemed like TV news was particularly quiet this afternoon, it was likely because New York’s Michaels restaurant hosted a pre-Super Bowl “Pep Rally,” and just about everyone was there.

Don’t believe us? Among the attendees were Fox News CEO Roger Ailes, Fox News anchors Brian Kilmeade and Jamie Colby, ABC’s Katie Couric and Andrea Canning, NBC’s Matt Lauer, Brian Williams and Savannah Guthrie, CNN’s Piers Morgan, CBS’ Chris Licht and Gayle King and, just for good measure, Whoopi Goldberg, Star Jones, singer John Mayer, John McEnroe, Cablevision CEO James Dolan and movie tycoon Harvey Weinstein, among many others.

You can see more names at the Michael’s New York Twitter feed.

Update: Our own Diane Clehane was there, and spotted Regis Philbin, Bill O’Reilly, former New York Governor George Pataki and plenty of others. Her report and photos are here.

In other words, it was quite the crowd. Couric and Ailes even had a nice chat, as Niche Media founder Jason Binn noted on Twitter.

(photo via Jason Binn)

The greatest play-by-play broadcaster of all-time will return for at least one more season.

Vin Scully announced Friday during the Los Angeles Dodgers-Colorado Rockies telecast that he would return for his 63rd season.

His announcement comes the same week after Los Angeles Times columnist T.J. Simers discovered Dodger season-ticket holders were sent a survey to evaluate Scully’s announcing abilities in six categories.

I guess he passed with flying colors.

Ron Artest‘s bid to officially change his name to Metta World Peace has been postponed until Sept. 16 at the earliest as the Lakers small forward has outstanding traffic violations — doled out to the person he’s still legally known as. Apparently officials in Los Angeles felt it was necessary to wait until today — Metta World Peace day — to rain on everyone’s parade.

Starting Sunday SportsCenter will follow four former coaches and current ESPN talking heads as they visit their old high schools. “Back to School” will feature Mike Ditka returning to Aliquippa, Pa.; Herm Edwards going back to Monterey, Calif.; Lou Holtz visiting East Liverpool, Ohio; and Lee Corso heading back to Miami, Florida. Unfortunately it will not feature any clips from the Rodney Dangerfield movie.

In addition to making surprise visit to their old schools, the four coaches visited some of their favorite hometown spots and shared time with family and friends.

“What these ‘Back to School’ features do is allow viewers to see where these guys got their start – both on the field and off – and provide our former coaches a chance to go back and interact with the community they grew up in,” said Glenn Jacobs, ESPN senior coordinating producer.

The schedule goes like this: Holtz on SportsCenter Sunday at 10 a.m.; Corso, Monday at 9 a.m.; Edwards, Tuesday at 9 a.m.; and Ditka, Wednesday at 9 a.m.

Want to know what the world will be missing out on during the debut of the Longhorn Network?

Well, the homeless home of the University of Texas will go live Friday at 6 p.m. CT from the South Mall on the UT campus. The College GameDay crew will join Lowell Galindo, Samantha Steele and Kevin Dunn during a two-hour show that will preview the upcoming Longhorns football season.

The No. 4-ranked Texas women’s volleyball team will take on Pepperdine in the first televised sporting event on the Longhorn Network at 8 p.m. CT. Carter Blackburn and Heather Cox will call the action and Steele will report from the sidelines.

Texas All-Access will wrap up the evening, providing access to football coach Mack Brown and the UT program as they prepare for their Sept. 3 home opener against Rice.

With the NFL lockout resolved, the 2012 Fiesta Bowl has been moved up from Jan. 5 to Jan. 2.

The BCS originally left the evening of Jan. 2 free in case the NFL had to push their season back due to the lockout.

The Fiesta Bowl will now be played right after the Rose Bowl, which is on Jan. 2 next year because New Year’s Day falls on a Sunday.

This is the first of three new 3o-second spots for Monday Night Football on ESPN, and it premieres today. This spot, called “Animal Control,” features an animal control officer who gets called to a home visit at an inopportune time.

Pretty funny stuff.

Future MNF promos will work off a similar theme of job abdication and debut closer to ESPN’s regular-season doubleheader debut on Sept. 12. Those spots are called “Plumber,” “Construction Worker,” “Food Inspector,” and “Police Officer.”

Starting this season, NFL fans that don’t have DirecTV can now get the NFL Sunday Ticket on their PlayStation 3.

Be prepared to shell out $339.95 for the PS3 service and DirecTV customers that are subscribed to the Sunday Ticket will have to pay an additional $50 to use their gaming console as an additional receiver.

“It’s our attempt to open up the universe a bit to people that can’t get DirecTV – students, people who live in big apartment buildings and people who live in New York City – and it’s a new revenue stream for us,” DirecTV senior director of product management Alex Kaplan told Multichannel News.

The one advantage DirecTV customers have is they can make monthly payments throughout the NFL season instead of coming up with $340.

Former Sports Illustrated writer Josh Elliott successfully made the transition from print to broadcast in 2005 when he was hired by ESPN as the host of Classic Now (RIP). Following a successfully stint on SportsCenter, Elliott left the sports world for a newsreader position on ABC’s Good Morning America.

Despite leaving the print world, the former NFL writer still gets the itch to write, especially when training camps are in full swing.

There’s still part of my genetic makeup that feels like in early to mid-August, I should be in a rental car, driving the back roads of Wisconsin and parts of America, on my way to far flung college campuses that are beset by infernally hot weather, to go talk to a bunch of professional athletes who are literally having the worst time of their lives,” said Elliott in an exclusive interview with mediabistro.com “The NFL will always have a real special place in my heart. It’s the secular religion in this country.”

For more of our interview with Elliott, check out “So What Do You Do, Josh Elliott, Good Morning America newsreader?”