Monday night in New York there will be a celebration of 40 consecutive years of sportstalk radio on one station; a 50,000 watt college station poised in, below and at one point atop Keating Hall on the campus of Fordham University, a place as a student, alumnus and staff member for several years I know very well. The station is WFUV, and the show being celebrated is “One on One,” which continues to be New York’s longest running sports talkshow, heard now both online and on-air. While it might not seem like much to have a show on-air today in a time when anyone can do a podcast or be a part of blogtalk radio, the fact that the show, and the hundreds if not thousands of careers that have been launched and listeners that were developed, is something to behold. More importantly there has been a level of professionalism and consistency that “One on One” has had since it launched that the students today, and all of the alumni and its longtime programming head Bob Ahrens take great pride in.
The greatest part of “One on One” over the years has not been the content, but the people; students, callers and alumni who have engaged in discussion and debate with guests big and small the old fashioned way, through the spoken voice, a form of communication that sometimes gets overlooked in the type at breakneck speed we deal with today. The show and the station have also been about accountability. Sure there have been an occasional rant but for the most part the discussions on topics big and small are intelligent, fun and worthwhile, with more than a share of guests filtered in. The show is on public radio, so there are grants but not commercial breaks, and its original times, Saturday and Sunday nights starting at 11 is a distant memory, but that doesn’t mean that the Gehrig-like weekly streak over 40 years has ever ceased, or that the memories of those who have been behind that mic are any less robust.
So yes the sports airwaves of WFUV have produced Michael Kay and Jack Curry and John Giannone and Chris Carrino and Mike Breen and Bob Papa and Paul Dottino, who paint the scenery for sports fans on TV and radio in NY. But the school and the station have also given rise to a host of professionals young and old, who used the opportunity as a way to get started in the media capital of the world, and have passed that legacy on to those now on air. From MLB Marketing head Tim Brosnan, to over a dozen voices on Sirius/XM (like Ed Randall and Andrew Bogush), to the man who keeps the Mets on the air every night, producer Chris Majkowski, to the guy who helped build the X Games at ESPN, Rick Allesandri, to the voice of the Washington Nationals Charlie Slowes and Good Morning America’s Tony Reali, as well as others like Elias Sports Bureau head Steve Hirdt, and Malcolm Moran, currently the Director of the National Sports Journalism Center at Indiana University, and so many others in public relations, sports marketing, sales, production and broadcasting, WFUV Sports and “One on One,” was where it all began.
Why Fordham? It has a 50,000 watt radio station sitting in the New York area, a great journalism tradition that includes Pulitzer Prize winner Arthur Daley, Basketball Hall of Fame broadcaster John Andariese, and the legendary Vin Scully, and the ability to create entry level spots for hardworking young people through its alumni base, a group that cares and engages with others coming through the program. WFUV is also unique in that it is the ONLY voice for Fordham sports; there is no commercial entity to push the public station broadcast to the back burner. While that is probably not good from a marketing standpoint for the school, it is invaluable in the level of professionalism that the students bring to the job, and that is reflected in the careers of so many. Saying that Fordham is really dominant in the business of sports is no slight to the Newhouse School at Syracuse or the Medill School at the Northwestern. What it is is a positive point toward a small Jesuit school which has a niche and has cultivated it over time. While a sports talkshow may not seem like a big deal today, 40 years of sports talk without a break is quite a deal in a world where five minutes is sometimes too long.
Hail Men (and women) of Fordham hail for such a great job for those who work and follow sports. WFUV and “One on One,” is a great symbol of the collective success of so many for so long, and here’s to making sure it gets its due.
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