Trent Green. Will Shields (Kansas City Chiefs). Buzz Bissinger ’72 (Author of Friday Night Lights and Three Nights in August). Kirk Ferentz (Iowa Head Football Coach). Rob Neyer (www.espn.com). Ernie Adams ’71 (Football Research Director of the New England Patriots). Craig Hansen (Boston Red Sox). George Vescey (The New York Times). Tony Massarotti (The Boston Herald). What do all these famous sports personalities have in common? They have all been guests on WPAA’s SportsNet Radio. Founded by Michael Jiang ’07 and Abhishek Sripad ’07, SportsNet Radio (SNR) has become one of the most popular shows on Phillips Academy’s radio station. After initially being rejected by WPAA in Winter 2005, SNR began broadcasting the next Spring. Since it hit the airwaves, the show has been host to stimulating sports debate and various guests ranging from sports columnists to authors to professional sports players. “We are dedicated to bringing stimulating sports talk and in-depth interviews to the campus. I work hard every week to ensure a quality product on the air every Monday. Whether it be contacting guests, researching information, or doing show preparations, I look forward to every challenge enthusiastically,” said Jiang. One key success for the show has been Jiang’s professionalism and seriousness. “At first, it was extremely difficult to contact potential guests because sports writers aren’t exactly the most open people in the world. In fact, my first attempt in contacting a guest, www.espn.com’s Peter Gammons, ended in a failed attempt with nothing but a four hour period spent on hold to show for it” The show has experienced various changes regarding hosts. After its first term of broadcasting, the board felt a change was needed to lift the show to new heights. “We felt that the show needed a bit more personality to reach the intended audience. We wanted variety. We saw a host of different personalities as a way to improve the quality of the sports talk, as well as add flavor to the mode of the show”, said Sripad. So starting in Fall 2005, a team of students composed of Christopher George ’07, Matt McGrath ’07, Daniel Gentile ’08, Shawn Xu ’07, Sripad, and Prateek Kumar ’07 have complimented the stead voice of Jiang on a weekly basis. The cast of sports personalities SNR has hosted have ranged greatly. Jiang said of his impressive list of guests, “it has been a fantastic experience for me, personally, as a sports fan to talk to these real life sports personalities, but also it gives our listeners something riveting and interesting to listen to every week.” In addition to terrific on-air performances, the SportsNet Radio crew has established its own website, providing not only information on previous and future broadcasts and an audio vault, but also has its very own new section with a team of over eight writers. Although is SNR has achieved feats comparable to college and professional radio stations have, the SportsNet Radio members look to improve with every show in the future. “In addition to our sports programming and website, we are constantly looking for new ways to bring sports to campus. Since the Winter 2005, we have been planning to host a charity basketball tournament that will exclusively benefit Curt’s Pitch for ALS-Lou Gehrig’s Disease, and The Massachusetts Chapter of the ALS Association. ALS has touched the lives of many professional athletes, none more so that the legendary Lou Gehrig, and to be able to spread awareness and help a great cause for a disease that has had so many ties to sports is a terrific feeling.” SportsNet Radio airs every Monday from 7-8pm. To learn more about it, visit www.sportnetradio.org.
