Their voices overpower the roar of thousands of screaming fans. It starts calm, but gradually intensifies with every shift in momentum. But these fans can’t be seen – only heard.
Such is the life of those in the sports department of The Underground, Ohio State’s only student radio station.
“It’s what I want to do for a living, it’s so much fun being able to go to the games and talk about the teams you love,” sophomore co-sports director said Dylan Howoritz. “I was never really good at sports but I always loved it, it was always my thing. To have the opportunity to be around sports all the time is just a blast.”
Created in 1996, the sports department began as a means to broadcast OSU games such as football, soccer, hockey and basketball. Only home games were broadcast live at the time, but in the following years, the program evolved from having just a phone interface and a tape recorder into what is now a well renowned and respected voice of the student body.
Aside from their daily telecasts and game coverage, those in the sports departments often share their insight as both fans and students on OSU athletics. Their most notable show, Bux on Bux, has evolved into one of their most recognized features. The three-hour program is a weekly show held every Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.
“Right now we’re unable to host any of our regular shows due to a problem at our previous studio, but once we get moved into our new studio at Drake Theater this winter, we should be able to get back to full force,” Howoritz said. “We have a staff of about 15 students right now and I can’t say enough about how hard they work. Everyone puts in a tremendous amount of hours, but it’s a lot of fun and well worth the hard work.”
The station, which broadcasts from Ohio.fm, can only be heard on the Internet at ohiostatesports.com. Most listeners are alumni from across the country, but for the bigger games such as the recent OSU-Michigan game, it’s not uncommon to hear from listeners across the seas. Sophomore co-director Brian Rosen said he hopes the added listeners will help lure in more interested students.
“Our number one goal from a marketing standpoint is just to get students involved,” Rosen said. “We understand that at home games students want to go out and have fun, and we encourage them to make sure there isn’t an empty seat at any Ohio State contest. We just invite people to check out our Web site and let us know what they think of it and if they are interested in joining.”
Despite the vast strides the organization has made in recent years, things didn’t begin too smoothly. In fact, it took three years before they offered coverage on away games, when Brian Mroziak and Seth Shaner broadcasted the Ohio State-Michigan clash of 1999. The contest served as the first live Internet stream, marking the first big step forward for the program.
But as Mroziak explained, that first broadcast was never supposed to happen.
“We left on Friday night and about 1 a.m. early Saturday, Seth Shaner, who I did games back with at the time says to me, ‘We have the tape recorder right?’ I said, ‘Well, you packed it Seth. Well he didn’t, and I don’t think we would have been able to drive through the night and back and still do the game, so we thought at that point, we better try to find a phone line in the Michigan press box to do the game live or we won’t be able to do the game at all,” Mroziak said.
With the help of the Michigan athletics department, Mroziak and Shaner called their producer back in Columbus and set up a phone line to broadcast live. From then on, things began to expand for the radio department.
“We basically figured after that point, hey if we were able to do the OSU-Michigan game on radio, why not start doing other games outside of Columbus live as well,” Mroziak said. “It really just opened our eyes and we thought we should be able to do more live events outside of Columbus.”
But the expansion didn’t stop there.
In 2002, The Underground was awarded ample funds from the Department of Athletics to support a full staff and improved technology. With the new resources at hand, Buckeye graduates Neil Sika, Matt Andrews and Andy Loth helped to orchestrate a groundbreaking year for the voices of the student radio. For the first time in its existence, every snap was covered, every championship run was closely followed and every fan was placed in a front row seat at his or her favorite Buckeye contest.
At the conclusion of the 2002 year, 10 sports experienced live coverage for a total of 104 broadcasts. Regardless of the amount of success the radio department experiences each year, staff members are quick to acknowledge those who helped establish the program in its previous years of existence.
“I greatly appreciate everything that has happened,” Rosen said. “Gavin Blair and Jeff Svoboda were both instrumental the past few years toward getting us where we are today. John Porentas from the O-zone.net has also lent a tremendous amount of support to us. I really believe that we’ve been able to improve a lot with the variety of shows we can now offer. We’re still student run and have no adviser, but we’ve made some great strides and will continue to do so in the future.”
