On the Air

Written by Bryan Roth '07
3/27/2007Share this story on Facebook!

This franchise has a storied past.

It’s a tremendous group of guys and gals that always gives 110 percent and knows that team chemistry is important because there’s no “I” in team. But, clichés aside, the Ithaca College Sports Radio staff has made a name for itself through its award-winning coverage of most Bombers sports—and a growing list of successful alumni.

Every year, the staff of about 30 students covers at least six sports teams, from football in the fall to baseball and softball in the spring. In all, the staff produces over 60 broadcasts annually between the college’s radio station, WICB, and its sister Internet station, 106-VIC.

Running the staff this semester are WICB sports director Evan Heidenrich ’08 and 106-VIC sports director Mike Berger ’07. Together, they oversee the staff ’s weekly work, which includes seven daily sports updates on both stations, game broadcasts, and weekly sports talk shows. For the members of the staff, the hours may be long and responsibilities plenty, but the rewards are worth it.

“Throughout high school, radio was always something that I wanted to try, so I went to rush night my freshman year, and the rest was history,” says Heidenrich. “I first thought the people on the staff were crazy [because of the way they joked around], but the funny thing is I’m sure the freshmen now have the same impression of me.”

Berger’s story is a little different. He spent two years at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., where he was also sports director before transferring to Ithaca. He was surprised to find that Ithaca’s sports broadcasting staff takes their job as seriously—if not more so—than the staff at GW.

“Since that’s a [Division I] environment, the sports culture was a lot different than it was here at IC,” he says. “Here at Ithaca, however, everything truly feels like a professional station. From all the DJs to the professionalism of our sportscasts and broadcasts, I truly believe we’re one of the best college run stations in the country.”

With a growing collection of successful alumni, the staff has been getting more attention from the broadcasting world. Currently, the staff has graduates working throughout minor league baseball, Division I college sports and even at big time stations such as WEEI in Boston.

“By the end of my sophomore year, I had called an NCAA playoff game; by my junior year I was co-producing, hosting, and engineering a weekly sports talk show; and in my senior year I was calling Bombers football,” said Jesse Goldberg- Strassler ’05, who now works in minor league baseball. “What I learned more

than anything else was that you held yourself to a standard of professionalism and excellence.”