When Karen Iglesia is on the sidelines, the kids shout, "It's PrimeTime!"
By David Andreatta @david_andreatta
click to enlarge
Students routinely use words like "authentic," "genuine," and "raw," to describe the appeal of Karen Iglesia and her PrimeTime585.
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Karen Iglesia had no sooner stepped onto the sidelines of the soccer field at Sutherland High School in Pittsford than the chatter in the student sections of the stands began.
“It’s PrimeTime!”
“Where? I love PrimeTime!”
“Oh my God, she’s here! PrimeTime!”
The sun was setting on a perfect summer night, and the boys varsity season opener that had the Sutherland Knights hosting their cross-town rivals, the Mendon High School Vikings, was minutes from kickoff.
Hundreds of students wearing the colors of both schools had already taken up their positions on either end of the bleachers, the blue and gold Knights to the west, the maroon and gold Vikings to the east.
The only common ground between them was their stanning over the middle-aged woman with her hair in a tidy bun walking the sidelines. They beckoned her to join them, attempting to entice her with school paraphernalia.
“They try to get me to put on their stuff,” she explained, then shouted playfully into the stands, “I told y’all I can’t wear that!” The crowd erupted with glee.
Rock star receptions have become the norm for Iglesia, a 50-year-old married mother of two grown sons who has attained unlikely celebrity as the face of PrimeTime585, a nonprofit enterprise she founded with her husband.
Their organization, incorporated a year ago, operates at the intersection of school sports, social issues, and social media in the 585 area code. In simple terms, that means it aims to highlight school sports and encourage athletes to give back to their communities by taking on weighty matters like racism, poverty, and mental health.
Iglesia has galvanized sports teams to adopt needy families, helped develop mental health forums for athletes, and hosted panel discussions on race and policing between law enforcement officials and young people.
In practical terms, though, Iglesia spends most nights of the week doing what she did that evening at Sutherland — creating video coverage and commentary of a high school athletic event and posting it on her social media channels.
She does it with the help of her husband of 26 years, Gerard Iglesia, who works the camera and plays the Stedman to her Oprah, forever behind the scenes but close by and integral to the operation.
“I always say that she’s Michael Jordan and I’m Scottie Pippen,” he said with a laugh.
Their content includes game highlights, interviews with athletes and fans, and post-game analysis with players. They also often record a “halftime show,” which typically lasts 30 seconds and consists of Iglesia recapping the score and playing up the excitement.
The role has shot her to stardom with student athletes across the region. In Rochester, they call her “Ms. PrimeTime.” In the suburbs, she’s “PrimeTime.” Adults call her “585.”
“When we started this, I didn’t think I’d be going to a Delta Sonic and kids want selfies with me when I’m going through the car wash, or at McDonald’s,” Iglesia said. “I can’t go to Wegmans anymore. It happens every day.”
Her influence also extends beyond students to the grownups in their lives. To put her clout with them into perspective, consider this anecdote: Parents of 27 student athletes from 24 schools in four counties agreed to her request to drive them to Schroeder High School in Webster for a photo shoot to illustrate this story.
In that instance, she also convinced the school’s athletic director to let the photographer and the families use the school’s facilities.
“She speaks a lot of languages,” Shawn Strege, the athletic director at Schroeder, said of Iglesia. “She speaks the language that kids love — they love to see their name in lights, they love to have representation.
“She speaks the school language,” he went on. “She’s omnipresent. She’s everywhere. It’s hard not to find her, and we are always looking for ways to highlight the wonderful things that kids and schools and coaches do and we’ve not really had the avenue to do it. She’s figured it out.”
'FANS OF THE GAME’
The Iglesias are not trained sports journalists, nor do they claim to be. Her on-camera delivery is relaxed, but lacks the polish of a pro. She is not shy about what she does not know about a particular sport. He shoots their footage with an iPad or an iPhone, sometimes out of focus.
They call themselves “fans of the game” and dispense with any pretense of objectivity. Their coverage gushes with praise.
But in an age when the sports departments of cash-strapped local news outlets have been depleted — and in spite of earnest efforts by the likes of the Democrat and Chronicle to ramp up coverage of high school sports — PrimeTime585’s social media platforms have become the go-to channel for many student athletes. Indeed, even television news outlets turn to PrimeTime585 for footage.
“Her personality and energy makes you want to keep watching her,” said Hanna Davis, 16, a standout lacrosse player at Canandaigua High School, who has her cellphone set to notify her when PrimeTime585 posts.
“Everyone has more energy when she’s there,” Davis said. “At halftime, when we see her, everyone on the sidelines is wondering who she’s going to interview and everyone is so excited to see what she has to ask us and say about us.”
Students from across the region used words like “authentic,” “genuine,” “raw,” and “huge” to describe what PrimeTime585 does. Some referred to Iglesia’s coverage as “episodes,” as though her snippets of video were “Must See TV.”
Her accessibility only bolsters her street cred. On social media, she tags students and retweets them. Between posting video from the sidelines at Sutherland, she was replying to texts from students, most of whom were inviting her to a game.
“She answers all our DMs, everyone’s,” said Rex Kesselring, 17, a senior at Sutherland who helped corral the “Sutherland Superfans” student section. “I contacted her before the game to make sure she was popping out. . . . She gives the kids who don’t have an opportunity to be seen get seen.”
Her connection with young people was notably on display in August, when Isaiah Ficklin, a 23-year-old former high basketball player at Vertus High School, contacted Iglesia wanting to share his story to deter students from a life of crime. He had recently pleaded guilty to gun charges and was facing prison time.
“He was a great basketball player,” Iglesia said. “His dad ended up getting shot by his brother in front of him when he was a senior in high school. He never went back to school.”
She interviewed him and subsequently advocated on his behalf with Monroe County District Attorney Sandra Doorley, who is among a handful of local elected officials who has publicly endorsed the work of Iglesia and PrimeTime585. A judge adjourned his sentencing to the fall.
“I played some basketball with her son, so she was like a mentor to me,” Ficklin said in a phone interview. “You feel comfortable talking to her. You just know she’s genuine.”
Iglesia has not infrequently been the target of trolling and taunting online, mostly from social media accounts whose owners operate in anonymity and take issue with her advocacy.
She has been criticized for her vocal support for law enforcement. She has been put down for using youth sports as a jumping-off point to bring attention to broader societal concerns. On the most sinister end of the spectrum, she has been regarded with suspicion for being a Black woman befriending and being a voice for white suburban student athletes.
Iglesia recounted a conversation she said she had recently with someone she would only describe as "a high-powered person" whom she said offered her $7,500 to help fund PrimeTime585 if Iglesia would stop talking about racial issues. Iglesia said she rejected the offer.
"The pushback is generally coming from very wealthy white folks, but the trouble is, I'm popular with their kids," Iglesia said.
"I'm in their kids' faces and I'm showing them things through a different lens: This kid is poor, and race does matter," she said. "When a Black kid gets pulled over it is different for this Black kid than this white kid. I don't tell them how to vote. I don't tell them to go get a COVID vaccine. I just give them the facts. That's what scares some people."
DEEP ROOTS
The Iglesias began creating video coverage of high school basketball in 2019. They said they realized they were onto something late in the season during a sectional game when the crowd began chanting “PrimeTime!”
They branched out to football and, last year, to all sports — from soccer and field hockey in the fall to tennis and golf in the spring, and everything in between. Sports like volleyball, cheerleading, and alpine skiing have gotten coverage, some with the help of parents who serve as PrimeTime585 “ambassadors.”
In that time, PrimeTime585’s social media following has shot up more than tenfold to 25,000 followers and counting across its platforms on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.
While it may appear that PrimeTime585’s profile has risen exponentially almost overnight, the Iglesias have been linked to schools, students, and sports for decades.
Gerard, 63, taught physical education in Rochester public schools and coached basketball teams at East High School and School of the Arts, among others, before he retired in 2014. He and his wife have run a free weeklong summer basketball camp for city youths since 2005. This year, there were more than 140 attendees.
Iglesia was born in Jamaica to a teenage mother who, upon immigrating to Rochester to work at the Eastman Kodak Co., left her with an aunt on the island until Iglesia was 10 and her mother could afford to send for her.
She graduated from Wilson Magnet High School and the University of Rochester. A chemical engineer by training, she said she learned early in her career that she preferred working with children.
Iglesia launched a science and math program at Baden Street Settlement, and later started a tutoring company that grew to become among the largest in the state, with locations across Rochester, Syracuse, and the Utica area.
The company, Iglesia Educational Services, had seized on a federal mandate for tutoring in struggling school districts, and by the early 2010s had taken in millions of dollars from the federal Department of Education for serving Rochester public school students.
That enterprise ended abruptly in 2012, however, when the city school district cut her contract and those of other private tutors, and required tutors to operate on school premises under the oversight of principals. The district was responding to critics who claimed off-site tutoring companies were not meeting the needs of students.
The lost revenue led to Iglesia failing to fulfill contracts she had for rental space, student transportation, and other services. Several companies and people sued her, and court records show that she has yet to settle some debts from that year.
“We lost everything,” Iglesia said, adding that she is working with her creditors to make payments.
Since then, the couple, who live in Webster, has thrown themselves into parenting, their health, and running PrimeTime585.
They have a son, Anthony, on the basketball team at the University of Washington, and another, Allen, at Monroe Community College. Gerard has kidney disease and is on dialysis.
PrimeTime585 does not have a revenue stream, although the Iglesias said people have suggested they try to monetize their operation. They said they do what they do for youngsters, their community, and their enjoyment — not for money.
“A lot of people don’t understand how we’re doing this and not getting paid, we’re using our own gas, our own time. They say, ‘What are you guys getting out of it?’” Iglesia said. “I say, ‘When you’re retired and you go golfing every day, what are you getting out of it? When you’re knitting all the time, what do you get out of it?’
“Some people golf. Some people knit,” she continued. “We do sports.”
David Andreatta is the editor of CITY. He can be reached at [email protected].
“It’s PrimeTime!”
“Where? I love PrimeTime!”
“Oh my God, she’s here! PrimeTime!”
The sun was setting on a perfect summer night, and the boys varsity season opener that had the Sutherland Knights hosting their cross-town rivals, the Mendon High School Vikings, was minutes from kickoff.
Hundreds of students wearing the colors of both schools had already taken up their positions on either end of the bleachers, the blue and gold Knights to the west, the maroon and gold Vikings to the east.
The only common ground between them was their stanning over the middle-aged woman with her hair in a tidy bun walking the sidelines. They beckoned her to join them, attempting to entice her with school paraphernalia.
“They try to get me to put on their stuff,” she explained, then shouted playfully into the stands, “I told y’all I can’t wear that!” The crowd erupted with glee.
Rock star receptions have become the norm for Iglesia, a 50-year-old married mother of two grown sons who has attained unlikely celebrity as the face of PrimeTime585, a nonprofit enterprise she founded with her husband.
Their organization, incorporated a year ago, operates at the intersection of school sports, social issues, and social media in the 585 area code. In simple terms, that means it aims to highlight school sports and encourage athletes to give back to their communities by taking on weighty matters like racism, poverty, and mental health.
Iglesia has galvanized sports teams to adopt needy families, helped develop mental health forums for athletes, and hosted panel discussions on race and policing between law enforcement officials and young people.
In practical terms, though, Iglesia spends most nights of the week doing what she did that evening at Sutherland — creating video coverage and commentary of a high school athletic event and posting it on her social media channels.
She does it with the help of her husband of 26 years, Gerard Iglesia, who works the camera and plays the Stedman to her Oprah, forever behind the scenes but close by and integral to the operation.
“I always say that she’s Michael Jordan and I’m Scottie Pippen,” he said with a laugh.
Their content includes game highlights, interviews with athletes and fans, and post-game analysis with players. They also often record a “halftime show,” which typically lasts 30 seconds and consists of Iglesia recapping the score and playing up the excitement.
The role has shot her to stardom with student athletes across the region. In Rochester, they call her “Ms. PrimeTime.” In the suburbs, she’s “PrimeTime.” Adults call her “585.”
“When we started this, I didn’t think I’d be going to a Delta Sonic and kids want selfies with me when I’m going through the car wash, or at McDonald’s,” Iglesia said. “I can’t go to Wegmans anymore. It happens every day.”
Her influence also extends beyond students to the grownups in their lives. To put her clout with them into perspective, consider this anecdote: Parents of 27 student athletes from 24 schools in four counties agreed to her request to drive them to Schroeder High School in Webster for a photo shoot to illustrate this story.
In that instance, she also convinced the school’s athletic director to let the photographer and the families use the school’s facilities.
“She speaks a lot of languages,” Shawn Strege, the athletic director at Schroeder, said of Iglesia. “She speaks the language that kids love — they love to see their name in lights, they love to have representation.
“She speaks the school language,” he went on. “She’s omnipresent. She’s everywhere. It’s hard not to find her, and we are always looking for ways to highlight the wonderful things that kids and schools and coaches do and we’ve not really had the avenue to do it. She’s figured it out.”
'FANS OF THE GAME’
The Iglesias are not trained sports journalists, nor do they claim to be. Her on-camera delivery is relaxed, but lacks the polish of a pro. She is not shy about what she does not know about a particular sport. He shoots their footage with an iPad or an iPhone, sometimes out of focus.
They call themselves “fans of the game” and dispense with any pretense of objectivity. Their coverage gushes with praise.
But in an age when the sports departments of cash-strapped local news outlets have been depleted — and in spite of earnest efforts by the likes of the Democrat and Chronicle to ramp up coverage of high school sports — PrimeTime585’s social media platforms have become the go-to channel for many student athletes. Indeed, even television news outlets turn to PrimeTime585 for footage.
“Her personality and energy makes you want to keep watching her,” said Hanna Davis, 16, a standout lacrosse player at Canandaigua High School, who has her cellphone set to notify her when PrimeTime585 posts.
“Everyone has more energy when she’s there,” Davis said. “At halftime, when we see her, everyone on the sidelines is wondering who she’s going to interview and everyone is so excited to see what she has to ask us and say about us.”
Students from across the region used words like “authentic,” “genuine,” “raw,” and “huge” to describe what PrimeTime585 does. Some referred to Iglesia’s coverage as “episodes,” as though her snippets of video were “Must See TV.”
Her accessibility only bolsters her street cred. On social media, she tags students and retweets them. Between posting video from the sidelines at Sutherland, she was replying to texts from students, most of whom were inviting her to a game.
“She answers all our DMs, everyone’s,” said Rex Kesselring, 17, a senior at Sutherland who helped corral the “Sutherland Superfans” student section. “I contacted her before the game to make sure she was popping out. . . . She gives the kids who don’t have an opportunity to be seen get seen.”
Her connection with young people was notably on display in August, when Isaiah Ficklin, a 23-year-old former high basketball player at Vertus High School, contacted Iglesia wanting to share his story to deter students from a life of crime. He had recently pleaded guilty to gun charges and was facing prison time.
“He was a great basketball player,” Iglesia said. “His dad ended up getting shot by his brother in front of him when he was a senior in high school. He never went back to school.”
Zay starts his 3.5 to 6 years prison sentence Monday. He DM me last night to tell his story. He wants people to know how and why he had a gun.. he wants politicians to know how we can help people like him..IT COMES DOWN TO SPORTS👇🏾👇🏾please 👂 and hear him..1/3 🧵 @realmalikevans pic.twitter.com/SjQ4xmeYqn
— Primetime585⭕️ (@PrimetimeBall_) August 12, 2022
She interviewed him and subsequently advocated on his behalf with Monroe County District Attorney Sandra Doorley, who is among a handful of local elected officials who has publicly endorsed the work of Iglesia and PrimeTime585. A judge adjourned his sentencing to the fall.
“I played some basketball with her son, so she was like a mentor to me,” Ficklin said in a phone interview. “You feel comfortable talking to her. You just know she’s genuine.”
Iglesia has not infrequently been the target of trolling and taunting online, mostly from social media accounts whose owners operate in anonymity and take issue with her advocacy.
She has been criticized for her vocal support for law enforcement. She has been put down for using youth sports as a jumping-off point to bring attention to broader societal concerns. On the most sinister end of the spectrum, she has been regarded with suspicion for being a Black woman befriending and being a voice for white suburban student athletes.
APPARENTLY I AM A BLACK RADICAL RACIST. I’ve been trolled by anonymous accounts using old tweets that I’m a radical racist. They’ve told me to stop going to suburban schools because I’m a NI$$A who should not interact w/ white kids. They’ve galvanized to get me shut down. 👇🏾👇🏾 pic.twitter.com/r3VWzX0PpJ
— Primetime585⭕️ (@PrimetimeBall_) September 23, 2022
Iglesia recounted a conversation she said she had recently with someone she would only describe as "a high-powered person" whom she said offered her $7,500 to help fund PrimeTime585 if Iglesia would stop talking about racial issues. Iglesia said she rejected the offer.
"The pushback is generally coming from very wealthy white folks, but the trouble is, I'm popular with their kids," Iglesia said.
"I'm in their kids' faces and I'm showing them things through a different lens: This kid is poor, and race does matter," she said. "When a Black kid gets pulled over it is different for this Black kid than this white kid. I don't tell them how to vote. I don't tell them to go get a COVID vaccine. I just give them the facts. That's what scares some people."
DEEP ROOTS
The Iglesias began creating video coverage of high school basketball in 2019. They said they realized they were onto something late in the season during a sectional game when the crowd began chanting “PrimeTime!”
They branched out to football and, last year, to all sports — from soccer and field hockey in the fall to tennis and golf in the spring, and everything in between. Sports like volleyball, cheerleading, and alpine skiing have gotten coverage, some with the help of parents who serve as PrimeTime585 “ambassadors.”
In that time, PrimeTime585’s social media following has shot up more than tenfold to 25,000 followers and counting across its platforms on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.
While it may appear that PrimeTime585’s profile has risen exponentially almost overnight, the Iglesias have been linked to schools, students, and sports for decades.
Gerard, 63, taught physical education in Rochester public schools and coached basketball teams at East High School and School of the Arts, among others, before he retired in 2014. He and his wife have run a free weeklong summer basketball camp for city youths since 2005. This year, there were more than 140 attendees.
Iglesia was born in Jamaica to a teenage mother who, upon immigrating to Rochester to work at the Eastman Kodak Co., left her with an aunt on the island until Iglesia was 10 and her mother could afford to send for her.
She graduated from Wilson Magnet High School and the University of Rochester. A chemical engineer by training, she said she learned early in her career that she preferred working with children.
Iglesia launched a science and math program at Baden Street Settlement, and later started a tutoring company that grew to become among the largest in the state, with locations across Rochester, Syracuse, and the Utica area.
The company, Iglesia Educational Services, had seized on a federal mandate for tutoring in struggling school districts, and by the early 2010s had taken in millions of dollars from the federal Department of Education for serving Rochester public school students.
That enterprise ended abruptly in 2012, however, when the city school district cut her contract and those of other private tutors, and required tutors to operate on school premises under the oversight of principals. The district was responding to critics who claimed off-site tutoring companies were not meeting the needs of students.
The lost revenue led to Iglesia failing to fulfill contracts she had for rental space, student transportation, and other services. Several companies and people sued her, and court records show that she has yet to settle some debts from that year.
“We lost everything,” Iglesia said, adding that she is working with her creditors to make payments.
Since then, the couple, who live in Webster, has thrown themselves into parenting, their health, and running PrimeTime585.
They have a son, Anthony, on the basketball team at the University of Washington, and another, Allen, at Monroe Community College. Gerard has kidney disease and is on dialysis.
PrimeTime585 does not have a revenue stream, although the Iglesias said people have suggested they try to monetize their operation. They said they do what they do for youngsters, their community, and their enjoyment — not for money.
“A lot of people don’t understand how we’re doing this and not getting paid, we’re using our own gas, our own time. They say, ‘What are you guys getting out of it?’” Iglesia said. “I say, ‘When you’re retired and you go golfing every day, what are you getting out of it? When you’re knitting all the time, what do you get out of it?’
“Some people golf. Some people knit,” she continued. “We do sports.”
David Andreatta is the editor of CITY. He can be reached at [email protected].
