Fordham graduate Mike Breen, FCRH ’83, the lead voice for the NBA on ESPN and ABC, and the voice of the New York Knicks on MSG Networks, received the Vin Scully Award for Excellence in Sports Broadcasting. And Norah O’Donnell, anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening News, was honored with the Charles Osgood Award for Excellence in Broadcast Journalism.

Fordham’s public media station, which is celebrating its 75th anniversary this fall, also paid special tribute to two people: the late Vin Scully, FCRH ’49, longtime voice of the Dodgers, who helped define the station in its early years; and former news director George Bodarky, FCRH ’93, who helped shape the careers of hundreds of young journalists during his 20-plus years at the station.

In the ‘Same Breath as Vin Scully’

Michael Kay, FCRH ’82, voice of the New York Yankees for the YES Network, presented Breen with the Scully Award. He recalled sitting in the Rose Hill campus center cafeteria in the 1980s, eating french fries and talking with a fellow Fordham undergraduate about their post-college aspirations.

“There was a young man from Yonkers sitting there in a hideous reindeer sweater, and across from him was a young man from the Bronx, sitting there in a snorkel coat,” Kay said to laughter. “And we sat and talked about our dreams. And the kid in the reindeer sweater, who’s Mike Breen, said, ‘You know what, I really want to be the voice of the Knicks.’ And I sat there, and I said, ‘You know what, I really want to be the voice of the Yankees.’ … But since Mike is Tommy Topper, he didn’t just become the voice of the Knicks, he became the voice of the NBA.”

Kay saluted Breen for his remarkable career, which began at WFUV and includes calling 17 NBA Finals, the most of any broadcaster. He said Breen’s achievements and his character are why he “deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Vin Scully,” the award’s namesake, who always “carried himself with elegance and grace and class.”

“You could go to anybody, in any part of this industry—there is not one person, not one person that has anything bad to say about Mike Breen. So he and Vin Scully go together,” said Kay, a 2018 recipient of the Scully Award. “He’s that sort of guy. He just treats people the way he’d want his children to be treated. And that’s special in this industry.”

Breen, who became only the second Fordham graduate to receive the award, said it was a high honor because Scully was “the gold standard.”

“When you’re an aspiring broadcaster, you dream about a lot of things, but you never imagine receiving an award named after Vin Scully,” he said.

Breen said that as an undergraduate at WFUV, he did a little bit of everything at the station and learned the value of hard work. In addition to covering sports, he served as a late-night and overnight music disc jockey, which he said gave him “one of the most memorable nights of my entire life.” Breen was on the air Monday night, Dec. 8, 1980, when news broke that John Lennon had been shot and killed in Manhattan.

“I was told by one of the seniors, ‘Take phone calls, take requests, and just play Beatles music all night,’” Breen said. “And the phones rang off the hook, and they were talking about what John Lennon meant to them. One gentleman told me how he was about to commit suicide, but John Lennon’s song stopped him. Another told me he had a drinking problem, and John Lennon helped them through that. And it was the first time in my life I realized what music meant to people.”

Breen said the experience, and his background in news, made him a more versatile broadcaster, which helped him throughout his career. He also said that he wouldn’t be receiving the award without the support of so many people, including Kay, with whom he has had “43 years of the best friendship a man could have”; his MSG broadcasting partner, Knicks legend Walt “Clyde” Frazier, who attended the dinner; and his wife, Rosanne.

“When you’re an announcer as long as I’ve been, you’re fortunate to have so many great partners,” he said. “I always believed announcers should never publicly say who their favorite partner is, but I’m going to break that rule tonight. And Clyde, unfortunately, you’re number two. You see, the best part about tonight is I get to share it with my favorite partner: my wife, Rosanne.”

Breen said those relationships and others have helped him and his family get through a particularly hard time recently after his house was destroyed in a fire. The Vin Scully award is the latest for Breen, who also has been inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as a recipient of the Curt Gowdy Media Award.

‘A Fierce Journalist’

CBS News senior national correspondent Anthony Mason, who served as emcee for the evening, described his colleague Norah O’Donnell as a “fierce journalist” when presenting her with the Charles Osgood Award for Excellence in Broadcast Journalism. The award is named in honor of the 1954 Fordham graduate and WFUV alumnus who for many decades was the host of CBS Sunday Morning.

“We, her colleagues who sit next to her, have come to recognize a certain look Norah gets in her eyes when a senator or some such official is dodging or ducking or weaving or whatever,” he said. “And this steely veneer comes across Norah’s face. That’s when the question comes out that hits right between the eyes.”

O’Donnell wasn’t able to attend the dinner, but she sent video remarks that were played at the event. “I am so humbled and honored to receive this year’s Charles Osgood Award,” she said, “and thank you to Fordham University, where my mom went, and WFUV for your commitment to journalism,” which she said is more than “just a calling.”

“At its best, it has the power to make real change in the world that we live in, to give voice to those who feel like they have been silenced,” she said. “It is a privilege to do what we do.”

Mason said he was honored to participate in the event.

“I am what they said in radio, a ‘first-time, longtime’—I’m a first-time host [of On the Record] and I’m a longtime FUV listener and fan,” he said. “I became a fan somewhere around 25 years ago, when I moved out to the suburbs so we could raise our kids, and literally my car and my 45-minute commute and WFUV were my sanctuary from my crazy job.”

Honoring the ‘Patron Saint of WFUV Sports’ and an Influential Mentor

This year’s On the Record also featured two special tributes to broadcasters who helped shape the station and carry on its legacy—Scully and George Bodarky.

Scully, who died in August at the age of 94, was remembered through a video tribute produced by the WFUV sports department.

“Vin Scully is our patron saint. We revere Vin Scully. The ground he walks on is just golden,” Kay said at the dinner. “And we miss him … but his memory lives on, and one of the great things about Vin Scully is that his talent, which is exceptional, probably is only surpassed by the person that he was.”

Veteran sportscaster Bob Costas, who received the Vin Scully Award in 2013, took part in a panel discussion at the dinner. He said that one of the best things about being honored by WFUV was finding out about it from Scully himself.

“Everyone who won, they found out from Vin Scully—no one at Fordham told the winner until Vin had called them, and you heard that unmistakable voice, and he concluded his very gracious and warm comments always, ‘So Bob, welcome to the club,’” Costas said. “And joining any club of which Vin Scully is the charter member is a very good thing.”

Bodarky, the community partnerships and training editor at WNYC, was honored for his more than 20 years of service to WFUV, during which time he helped shape the careers of hundreds of young journalists, including NPR White House correspondent Scott Detrow, FCRH ’07, who presented him with the award.

“The thing about George is that dozens, maybe hundreds of people could be giving these remarks right now, telling you how George changed their life, how George taught them about broadcasting, how George opened the door to what became their career and their vocation,” he said.

Detrow said one lesson from Bodarky that has always stuck with him is that it is a privilege to tell people’s stories.

“He was talking to a student reporter one day, and he said, ‘What kind of interviews do you want to do?’ And the … student said, ‘I want to interview important people, I want to interview famous people,’” Detrow said. “And George said, ‘Those are actually the most boring interviews to do. They don’t want to tell you that much. What you want to do is interview people who have compelling stories—bring their stories to life, tell people about them.’ And I never forgot that.”

Bodarky said the honor wasn’t just for him but for all the journalists who came through the station. He asked those who had worked with him during their time at WFUV to stand up and be recognized.

“You are my success,” he told them. “You are the reason that I’m standing here tonight.”

Bodarky credited his mentors, including WFUV station manager Chuck Singleton, for helping him get his start in journalism as a Fordham undergraduate after he thought he wanted to pursue a law degree.

“This honor is also shared with my mom,” he said, “a single mother who raised two boys on her own, who always taught me to fly high and believe in myself, who I think without knowing it, taught me the importance of working hard, caring for others, and picking yourself up and dusting yourself off when times get tough.”

Bodarky said he’s grateful for the role he’s been able to play in so many journalists’ careers.

“When someone tells me that I played a role in their journalistic achievements, that they hear me in their head, guiding them when they’re on the air, writing a script, or doing an interview—that makes me feel present when I’m not present and that gives me the feeling of success,” he said.

The Next Generation

WFUV also recognized two young journalists, both of whom graduated from Fordham last May. Abigail Delk, FCRH ’22, received the WFUV Award for Excellence in News Journalism, and Alexander Wolz, FCRH ’22, received the Bob Ahrens Award for Excellence in Sports Journalism.

Singleton said that Delk not only produced award-winning feature stories for Cityscape, the station’s weekly public affairs show, but also “effortlessly managed her peers as editor.” Wolz was recognized for helping to turn all of the station’s sports “shows into digital, streamed programming, most notably New York’s longest-running sports call-in show, One on One.”

Breen said that Wolz and Delk are examples of students who are not just carrying on but enhancing WFUV’s legacy.

“Every Fordham student who decides to join this amazing radio station feels a responsibility to uphold the standards that all the previous students and student broadcasters have set—I felt it, I know Michael felt it,” Breen said, referring to Kay. “And I’ll say this to you two, and your fellow current students and broadcasters who are here tonight, you’ve not only upheld the standards, you’ve raised them. And I say bravo.”

Singleton said that this year’s dinner raised more than $137,000, bringing the total raised since WFUV launched the On the Record program to more than $1.1 million. That funding supports the station’s student training program, which this year includes more than 130 students.

“Vin Scully’s death marks the end of an era,” said Tania Tetlow, president of Fordham. “As members of the Fordham family, we grieve the loss of a wise and decent man who always spoke to our better natures—on the field and off. I know the University and WFUV communities join me in keeping Vin’s loved ones in our hearts and prayers today.”

Sometimes called the “Velvet Voice,” the iconic broadcaster was known for his elegant and evocative yet plainspoken approach to broadcasting. Listeners felt like they were joining a friend each broadcast as Scully welcomed them in with his usual greeting: “Hi everybody, and a very pleasant good evening to you, wherever you may be.”

“We have lost an icon,” Dodgers president and CEO Stan Kasten said in a statement. “The Dodgers’ Vin Scully was one of the greatest voices in all of sports. He was a giant of a man, not only as a broadcaster, but as a humanitarian. He loved people. He loved life. He loved baseball and the Dodgers. And he loved his family. His voice will always be heard and etched in all of our minds forever.”

Michael Kay, FCRH ’82, voice of the Yankees for YES Network, wrote in a statement that we “lost the greatest broadcaster who ever lived.”

“Every game was a master’s class as he turned an inning into poetry. And as great as he was, he was just as nice. Class, elegance and grace were all part of his humble but regal being,” Kay wrote. “His loss is heartbreaking as his golden voice is silenced, but he will live forever as an example of what to try and be on and off mic. RIP Mr. Scully and rest easy knowing how much you made a difference to all who met you and had the joy of listening to you.”

In a career spanning seven decades, Scully voiced some of the most historic calls in the game, including Don Larsen’s and Sandy Koufax’s perfect games in 1956 and 1965, respectively; Hank Aaron’s 715th career home run to break the record set by Babe Ruth; and Kirk Gibson’s walk-off home run in the 1988 World Series.

He received numerous awards throughout his career including an induction into the broadcasters’ wing of the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1982 and a Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama in 2016.

“The game of baseball has a handful of signature sounds,” President Obama said at the White House ceremony in 2016. “You hear the crack of the bat, you got the crowd singing in the seventh-inning stretch, and you’ve got the voice of Vin Scully.”

Scully’s career began at Fordham’s Rose Hill campus. He graduated in 1949 and is known as the “patron saint” of WFUV Sports, getting his start at the radio station as a student at Fordham College at Rose Hill. His work has inspired generations of students to become sports broadcasters.

He received an honorary doctorate from Fordham in 2000 after giving the commencement address and a lifetime achievement award from WFUV that is now named in his honor. Scully was inducted into the University’s Hall of Honor in 2011.

Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president emeritus of Fordham, called Scully one of Fordham’s “greatest heroes” as he awarded Scully with the Ram of the Year award in 2014.

“From the heart, I want you to know you are for Fordham an example of a man for others, a man whose life has been a life of integrity, of service, of great devotion to the University,” Father McShane said at the ceremony. “You could not be a better ambassador for us. Everyone at Fordham loves you as much as we revere you.”

Bob Ahrens, who worked as the WFUV Sports director for 20 years before his retirement in 2017, worked with Scully for years through the station.

“He loved Fordham, he loved FUV,” Ahrens said. “He was a Fordham guy through and through. He had a love for the school. He always wanted to know how the teams were doing.”

The Early Years

Scully was born in the Bronx after his parents immigrated from Ireland. He grew up in Washington Heights before he attended Fordham Preparatory School. He graduated in 1944 and served briefly in the Navy before returning to Rose Hill to study communications.

At Fordham, Scully had a sports column in The Fordham Ram student newspaper, worked as a stringer for The New York Times, and sang in the Shaving Mugs, a campus barbershop quartet. He also briefly played outfield for the Fordham baseball team.

When he gave the commencement address at Fordham in 2000, Scully told the graduates that the words he associated with Fordham were “home, love, and hope.”

“Home, because I spent eight years here on this campus, and it really was my second home. Love, because I loved every minute of it, and some of my closest and dearest friends in all the world were my classmates and teammates. And hope, hope came from a five-letter word called a dream,” he told the students.

Scully told the graduates that “I am one of you.”

“I walked the halls you walked. I sat in the same classrooms,” he told the graduates. “I took the same notes and sweated out the final exams; drank coffee in the café and played sports on your grassy fields.”

But Scully’s favorite place to be was behind the microphone. He called Fordham baseball, basketball, and football games for WFUV, 90.7 FM, which launched in 1947. In a 2020 documentary for WFUV Sports, Scully joked that he would call games to himself while playing in the outfield.

“I used to be so thrilled by the roar of the crowd that first, I loved the roar. Then I wanted to be there, and eventually I thought I would love to be the announcer doing the game,” he said in the documentary.

When Scully received the Ram of the Year award in 2014, he recalled sitting in the Fordham Prep auditorium next to his classmate Larry Miggins.

“We were talking about what we hoped to do when we finished school,” Scully said after accepting the award. “Larry said, ‘I’d love to be a major league ballplayer,’ and I said, ‘I’d love to be a major league broadcaster.’ And we both kind of chuckled.”

Scully recalled how a few years later, on May 13, 1952, he was behind the mic in the broadcast booth at Ebbets Field when Miggins came to bat for the Cardinals.

“It was so hard to speak. The Dodgers had a left-handed pitcher named Preacher Roe from Ash Flat, Arkansas. Preacher Roe was going to face my buddy Larry Miggins, and I’m going to describe whatever happens,” Scully said. “And Larry Miggins hit a home run.”

The Voice of the Dodgers

After graduating from Fordham, Scully spent the summer working at a CBS radio affiliate in Washington, D.C., before he returned to New York to speak with the network about working there. Just a few days later, he received a call from Red Barber, the legendary CBS sports director and broadcaster, asking him to cover a college football game that Saturday.

In less than a year, Scully joined Barber on what were then the Brooklyn Dodgers’ broadcasts. When Barber left to work for the Yankees following the 1953 season, Scully became the Dodgers’ primary announcer, a position he held until he retired in 2016.

During his long career, Scully recorded some of the most memorable calls in baseball history. He had been in the Dodgers job for less than five years when Don Larsen took the mound in Game 5 of the 1956 World Series and pitched a perfect game, the only one in a World Series.

“Got him! The greatest game ever pitched in baseball history by Don Larsen, a no-hitter, a perfect game in a World Series. Never in the history of the game has it ever happened in a World Series,” Scully said on the broadcast.

Less than 10 years later, Scully would be behind the mic for another perfect game, this time with Sandy Koufax on the mound. Scully’s call of the last inning featured his descriptive, evocative style.

“And there are 29,000 people in the ballpark, and a million butterflies,” he said, after the first batter.

As Koufax was one out away from a perfect game, Scully said, “I would think that the mound at Dodger Stadium right now is the loneliest place in the world.”

In 1974, the Dodgers traveled to Atlanta and faced Hank Aaron, who was one home run away from breaking Babe Ruth’s record of 714 career home runs. In the fourth inning, Aaron stepped up to the plate and made history, with Scully behind the mic.

“It’s a high drive into deep left center field, Buckner goes back to the fence, it is gone!” Scully called before letting the crowd take the mic for almost 30 seconds of celebration.

He then remarked on the historic achievement: “What a marvelous moment for baseball. What a marvelous moment for Atlanta and the state of Georgia. What a marvelous moment for the country and the world. A Black man is getting a standing ovation in the Deep South for breaking a record of an all-time baseball idol and it is a great moment for all of us.”

Bill Buckner, who almost caught that home run, would be at the heart of another famous—or infamous—Scully call.

Now playing first base for the Red Sox, Buckner and his team were attempting to break the famous “Curse of the Bambino,” having not won a World Series since trading Babe Ruth to the Yankees after the 1919 season. In 1986, the Red Sox faced the New York Mets in the World Series, and in Game 6, the Mets’ Mookie Wilson hit what looked to be a simple ground ball down the first base line.

“Little roller up along first, behind the bag, it gets through Buckner! Here comes Knight, and the Mets win it,” he said. “If one picture is worth a thousand words, you have seen about a million.”

And in 1988, with the Dodgers in the World Series, outfielder Kirk Gibson had hurt both of his legs in the prior series and wasn’t sure if he was going to play. But with two outs in the ninth, a man on base, and the Dodgers down a run, Gibson was called on to pinch hit. He limped up to the plate, and then a miracle happened, which Scully captured poetically.

“High fly ball into right field, she is gone!” Scully said. “In a year that has been so improbable, the impossible has happened.”

A Lasting Influence

Scully’s iconic style has made him an inspiration for many generations of sports broadcasters who followed in his footsteps at WFUV and at Fordham.

“His vocabulary, his storytelling, his personality—everything. He just was perfect,” ESPN NBA announcer Mike Breen, FCRH ’83, said in the 2020 WFUV Sports documentary. “It made you … [want]to make sure you were always prepared anytime you went on the air. You might have had two exams that day or [been]having trouble at home that day—it didn’t matter. You had to have a certain standard for WFUV that began with Vin Scully.”

Ahrens said that Scully always made time for the students and the station. The students usually interviewed him about once a year for the weekly One on One call-in show, and Ahrens said he hosted at least two workshops with the students over the phone.

“Vin’s on the phone, they can’t see him in person, and the control room is packed,” he said. “He was always generous with his time when he had it. And he didn’t have to, but he loved FUV, he loved Fordham, and he was always willing to help out.”

Ahrens remembered shortly after he took the job in 1997 he reached out to the Dodgers to try to set up a time for students to interview Scully. The Dodgers’ media team took his number and said they would try to see what they could do.

“I was in the newsroom, and we had a PA system and the [front desk manager]hops on the PA system and says, ‘Bob Ahrens, Vin Scully on the phone,’” he said, with a laugh. “You can imagine the whole newsroom turned silent.”

WFUV Sports named its lifetime achievement award after him—the Vin Scully Lifetime Achievement Award in Sports Broadcasting—which Kay took home in 2018.

“To be given an award with Vin Scully’s name on it is beyond anything I could have ever imagined,” Kay said at the awards ceremony. “He is the patron saint of WFUV Sports, he is the patron saint of anybody who does baseball play-by-play. He is the best at what he’s done.”

Ryan Ruocco, FCRH ’08, who calls Yankees games on YES and basketball games on ESPN, wrote that “Vin was truly one of one.”

“It’s impossible to put into words the impact Vin Scully has had on broadcasting, our Fordham/WFUV family, and the sport of baseball,” Ruocco wrote. “His storytelling and excellence behind the mic was matched only by his grace, generosity, and kindness.”

Scully impacted even those who didn’t step behind the microphone. Pitcher Nick Martinez, who attended the Gabelli School of Business for three years before he was drafted in the 2011 MLB draft, had the chance to meet Scully in 2015.

Martinez said he was “awestruck at first.”

“And then once we got talking, I thought it was extremely cool just being able to talk about our campus and our school, and some of the other guys that came before me. He was sharp, naming some of the guys that were on the [Fordham] team currently, and how we just had a couple guys drafted. I just thought it was extremely cool that we had that connection,” he recalled.

Mike Watts, GABELLI ’14, who calls games for ESPN, Westwood One, and other networks, said that Scully and his legacy at WFUV inspired him to come to Fordham.

“There is no WFUV Sports without Vin Scully,” Watts said. “His name gave all of us credibility. To have the greatest at anything come from your school, your radio station, your program—it’s the light that all of us were following.”

While his play-by-play work makes for an already-packed schedule, in the spring of 2017, he and Yankees starting pitcher CC Sabathia decided to act on an idea they had talked about many times over the years: starting a podcast together.

The two share an easy rapport and many of the same interests, and they knew from the start that they wanted the project to be less about debate and hot takes and more about candid, casual conversations with interesting guests.

The weekly podcast, R2C2 (a play on the hosts’ names and their mutual appreciation for Star Wars), has featured current and former Yankees, like Giancarlo Stanton and Reggie Jackson, and personalities across the sports landscape, like Terrell Owens, Mark Cuban, and Sue Bird.

“We think about who is interesting, is a good talker, who has cachet, and who we have some sort of relationship with,” Ruocco says of how he and Sabathia decide on their guests. “[CC] is the perfect candidate to be able to do something like this, because he creates an atmosphere that is so comfortable and fun for everyone, but he also has the respect of anybody who sits down with us.”

The hosts’ desire to create a relaxed environment where free-flowing conversation can thrive has clearly paid off. Whether the dialogue stays focused on sports or veers into pop culture, food, or politics, everyone on the mic opens up and seems to have a great time, often resulting in hilarious stories that sports fans wouldn’t normally have the opportunity to hear.

“One of the coolest parts is, almost every single guest that we have, when they get done, they’ll be like, ‘Oh my gosh, that was so much fun, when can I do it again?’” says Ruocco. “It’s fun to [have]a loose format, to not feel so uptight, to be able to disseminate these stories to people in a way that’s just like, hey, we don’t need to be so formal. It’s life, let’s talk about it, you know?”

Ruocco traces his success back to his time at Fordham, where he, like so many other sports announcers, got his broadcasting start. His experience as a student working at WFUV under former executive sports producer Bob Ahrens, he says, made his career possible.

“It’s this simple,” Ruocco says. “If I did not go to Fordham and work at WFUV, I would not be here doing what I’m doing today. Period.”

As for the future of R2C2, Ruocco says he and Sabathia, who signed a final one-year contract last fall to finish his career with the Yankees, “are all in on” the show, and are even considering expanding into video.

“We love doing it, and we have no plans of stopping anytime soon.”

Recalls Schultz: “He brought Bob in and said, ‘This is Bob Ahrens. This is the man who’s going to take this department to the next level.’ It didn’t take too long before we realized that Bob was bringing our standards to a level that they had never been at.”

A High Standard for Success

Indeed, over the next two decades, Ahrens ran a sports department that’s been widely praised for training future broadcasters in a professional environment.

He insisted that the staff operate to pro standards, he says, not only because it’s good training but also because WFUV reporters are credentialed to cover the local pro teams alongside the rest of the city’s sports media. That mindset has paid off: During Ahrens’s tenure, WFUV produced the likes of ESPN host Tony Reali, FCRH ’00; CBS Sports’ Spero Dedes, FCRH ’01; and Ryan Ruocco, FCRH ’08, of ESPN and the YES Network, continuing Fordham’s long tradition of launching the careers of sports broadcasters.

In 2014, the station paid tribute to Ahrens by establishing the Bob Ahrens Award for Excellence in Sports Journalism. The award is given annually to a member of the WFUV sports staff who has excelled on and off the air and demonstrated strong leadership ability.

Ahrens retired earlier this year as the station’s executive sports producer, and now, as WFUV transitions to its next chapter, he is passing the torch to a familiar face: Schultz.

A Return to Rose Hill

Schultz says when he first heard about the opening at WFUV, he didn’t imagine himself as a candidate. “The first thing that popped into my head was, ‘They have to do it right, because he’s built such a legacy here that has to be protected and built upon.’”

But as he began to think about what he believed the ideal candidate would look like—an on-air background, teaching experience, and a connection to WFUV—he realized he had all three. His broadcasting career included stints with Army athletics, two minor-league baseball teams, and an ESPN Radio affiliate, and he’d taught at Marist College and the Connecticut School of Broadcasting.

He threw his hat into the ring and got the job, and since this summer he’s been working with Ahrens, who’s staying on through the end of the year as a consultant, to ensure a smooth transition.

“It’s always gratifying to see one of your former students get the job,” Ahrens says. “Rick was basically in my first group. It’s sort of like bookends.”

Schultz says that working with Ahrens has been helpful in ways both big and small, from learning how the station operations have changed since his own Fordham days to quickly tracking down a phone number he may need.

“It’s very important to me for the students to understand that I was in their position 20 years ago, and I know what it’s like to be sitting there and have someone new come in,” Schultz says.

“My message to the students over the past few months has been, ‘The great thing about WFUV is that this is your station.’” In other words, he’s there to help guide the students, not drastically change things. “I think when something’s working, you try as best as you can not to mess it up,” he says.

But Schultz says he’s also learning how to develop his own style and priorities. He says there’s room for growth in social media and video, and that he’d like to collaborate more with the news side of WFUV.

A “Perfect Fit” to Carry on the Tradition

Mike Breen, FCRH ‘83, the play-by-play announcer for the New York Knicks on MSG as well as the NBA on ESPN, says that Ahrens has been a “magnificent” mentor to members of the FUV sports department.

“He’s as dedicated to his job and to the students that he helped as anybody I’ve ever seen,” Breen says. “And because Rick came up through the system, and knows what the system’s about, it seems like the perfect fit for him to follow in Bob’s footsteps.”

More than 20 years ago, Schultz followed in Breen’s footsteps. As a high school student, he reached out to Breen to discuss the broadcasting business, and Breen told him about his experiences at WFUV and about Fordham’s strong tradition. Schultz says Fordham was the only school he applied to, and now, as he returns to Rose Hill, he’s reflecting on the icons who came before him at the station.

“It’s still kind of surreal for me to be sitting in this office looking at the portrait of Marty Glickman on the wall and the Bob Ahrens Award on the other side of the wall, and to be sitting here taking that next chapter of WFUV Sports,” he says. “It’s still something that really strikes you every day.”

—Joe DeLessio, FCLC ’06

As one of the Mets beat reporters for WFUV, Fordham’s public media service, Furlong spent the day at Citi Field. He watched from the press level as the Nationals beat the Mets, 3-2, then rushed down to the interview room for Mets manager Terry Collins’ postgame press conference, and headed to the Mets clubhouse to collect audio from players Jacob deGrom and Seth Lugo before choosing the best sound bites for FUV’s Monday morning sportscast.

In the past few years, Furlong has taken on myriad roles at WFUV, and on Nov. 1, at the station’s annual On the Record fundraiser, he’ll receive the Bob Ahrens Award for Excellence in Sports Journalism.

The award, given annually to a member of the WFUV sports staff who’s excelled on and off the air and demonstrated strong leadership ability, bears the name of the station’s longtime executive sports producer. Ahrens, who retired earlier this year after two decades at WFUV, currently serves as a consultant during the transition to his successor, Rick Schultz, FCRH ’98.

Furlong says he’s honored to be chosen, and that it’s especially meaningful because of the award’s namesake. “Bob Ahrens has been a second father to me at Fordham,” he says. “He’s been a mentor to me, in and out of the studio.”

Preparing to Work Alongside the Pros 

Furlong initially chose Fordham for its swimming team, and he competed for two years, but he knew he ultimately wanted to go into journalism. During his sophomore year, he came across WFUV’s table at a club fair. Impressed by the professional nature of the station, he signed up.

Like all members of the WFUV sports department, Furlong learned the ropes during an intensive year-long training program. In one semester, students learn the basics of radio production, like how to use the station’s recorders and computers. In the other, they rotate through various roles in a mock talk show, getting experience as a host, update anchor, producer, and engineer. And that’s all on top of workshops and informal conversations that teach students how to conduct themselves with professionalism in the press box.

“The standards we’re teaching are not college standards,” Ahrens says. “They’re professional standards. Because those are the standards by which they’re going to get judged when they get out of here.”

Reporting and Producing

By the end of his training, Furlong began to get involved in actual WFUV broadcasts, both as a producer and in an on-air role. He also landed his first internship, with CBS New York. During his junior year, he started working on Fordham football broadcasts, then landed another internship, this time with SNY.

As the year went on, his role continued to expand at FUV: He traveled with the men’s and women’s basketball teams and served as the field engineer on those broadcasts. He did play-by-play for Fordham’s baseball, soccer, and water polo teams. And at the start of the 2017 baseball season, he was named one of the station’s two Mets beat reporters, covering roughly half the team’s home games as well as events like this summer’s Baseball Hall of Fame induction and the 2017 MLB All-Star Game. 

Leading Younger Students, Looking Ahead 

As summer turned to fall, Furlong was preparing to switch to sharing the Islanders beat at FUV, while also working as a field producer and color commentator on Rams basketball games. He’ll have a hand in FUV’s One on One sports talk show, which airs on Saturday afternoons and Wednesday evenings, alternating between hosting and working on the production side. He’s also helping lead this year’s training program for the next group of WFUV staffers.

“John assumes a lot of the coaching and teaching roles with the younger students coming into the sports department, because I think he felt that that’s what was done for him,” says Schultz.

This winter will bring another golden opportunity: Furlong will travel to South Korea to work as a production assistant for NBC Sports during the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.

“Every door that has opened to me in my career has been opened by WFUV,” says Furlong, who wants to work on the production side of broadcasting when he graduates. Looking ahead, he says the training and experience he’s received at WFUV have given him confidence that he’ll thrive in the industry.

“Whenever they show a shot of the control room during an ESPN radio broadcast, [I see that] we have the same equipment as they do. Literally. It’s like, ‘I could run that board right now. I could probably go produce that show if I wanted to,’ which is really cool to think about.”

—Joe DeLessio, FCLC ’06

From l to r, students Jack McLoone, sophomore, Christian Goewey, senior, Drew Casey, senior, ESPN’s Brent Musburger, and WFUV’s Bob Ahrens. (Photo by Chris Taggart)

Casey, a native of Union, New Jersey, was broadcasting the game live from Santa Clara, California, for WFUV Radio (90.7 FM/wfuv.org).

For his work at the station, Casey was honored at On The Record, held Nov. 9 at Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus, with the Bob Ahrens Award for Excellence in Sports Journalism. Fellow student Jake Shore, FCRH ’18, who was unable to attend, received the WFUV Excellence in Journalism Award for news reporting.

“Covering the Super Bowl was incredible,” he said. “It almost makes me a little cautious about what comes after Fordham.”

At the ceremony, the station bestowed awards named for broadcast legends and WFUV/Fordham alumni Charles Osgood and Vin Scully. This year’s honorees were CBS News 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl and ESPN play-by-play broadcaster Brent Musburger.

Shore, a Los Angeles native and a journalism/political science major studying in London this semester, joined the station during his freshman year, thinking he could score tickets to concerts as part of the promotions department staff. He was tapped for news instead.

“It was a lot of training, but once I got the hang of it I really loved it,” he said.

He credited general manager George Bodarky and Robin Shannon, assistant news and public affairs director, with mentoring him.

“From the first day, they want you to be the best you can be. You can’t get away with mistakes. I appreciate that they would hammer that in,” he said.

His training included covering a lot of press conferences. One press conference last spring turned out to be especially newsworthy: a group of politicians gathered outside a house in the South Bronx to protest an owner’s use of AirBnB to rent property as a venue for large parties.

“It was a standard press conference, but then it got so crazy,” he said. “Neighbors came out and started yelling at the guy who owns the house, and the guy started yelling back at them. The local politicians were caught in the crossfire.”

Shore’s AirBnB story earned him honors. The excitement of doing it is also one of the reasons he plans to stick with journalism once he graduates, he said.

Casey said he knew from the very beginning that he wanted to pursue broadcasting. He’d already tried his hand at it at St. Peter’s Prep in Jersey City, and he chose Fordham in part because of the opportunities WFUV offered.

In addition to covering two Super Bowls, he has spent the past year traveling with the men’s football and basketball teams. Two of his feature stories—one about the Special Olympics, and another about American Pharoah’s Triple Crown win—received awards.

Winning the award is meaningful to Casey because executive sports director Ahrens, for whom the award is named, is also Casey’s mentor. As sports manager, Casey estimated he speaks to Ahrens every day to receive critiques of all of his broadcasts.

“The time that I’ve spent with Bob has been instrumental in my growth as a broadcaster, as a young sports media professional, and as a person,” he said. “Officially, its work, but it doesn’t feel like it.”

Casey said that upon graduation, he’s considering moving to Montana or Idaho—if he can land a gig broadcasting minor-league baseball.

“It’s my passion. I love doing it. I would certainly pick up and go there if the opportunity was right,” he said.

New York’s longest-running sports call-in show has hit another milestone.

On Sept. 29, 2014, WFUV celebrated the 40th anniversary of its successful One on One weekly sports broadcast, a Saturday afternoon show that has trained hundreds of Fordham students in hosting, producing, engineering, and writing for broadcast media.

The celebration also honored the show’s longtime executive producer Bob Ahrens, who, for nearly two decades, has overseen One on One’s listener growth and transition into the digital age.

Inside Fordham recently talked with him:

What One On One Is
“It’s a real talk show. We started sending the students to professional games as beat reporters, and immediately they became part of the New York media scene. They got to know the rest of the media, got to speak with players, and upped the opportunity for getting guests on the show. Periodically we will have the guests live on One on One. We’ve had the general managers of the teams live from Yankee Stadium and Citi Field; we’ve had several alumni now in broadcasting, and we’ve had players. The shows have been taken on the road too; we’re in Cooperstown on Hall of Fame weekend, and have access to all the hall-of-famers.”

On Last Year’s Season:
“There is no question that the good season last year, especially our football and women’s basketball, helped our show’s listenership; it also benefited our Twitter and Facebook accounts.”

On Training Students In Broadcasting
“We have a lot of applications; they don’t all get in. We have 35 students and most of them work on the air and behind the scenes in some form. When new students come in, we give them a full year of training before they can do anything. So when you listen on Saturday, you are usually listening to sophomores, juniors, and seniors.

“Most of the students on staff have been sports fans growing up. If you are on the air you have to be able to talk about the sport; if you are a producer, you have to know enough about it to know whether a host is giving correct information; and if you are an engineer and you don’t understand media time-outs, you’re not ready to do your part of it. That said, you don’t have to know every sport; you can learn.”

Making It Personal
“I grew up in Brooklyn with the Dodgers, and saw them at Ebbets Field many times, and when they left they took my childhood with them. Here, at One on One, I help others make the transition from student to adulthood. It’s part of WFUV’s mission to train Fordham students. It’s great to see where they start, and where they wind up in four years. And once they graduate, it’s also great to see how far a lot of them go.

“We once sent a student for an internship at Inside the NFL. He walked in and had already covered the Yankees, Nets, and Jets while he was here. And he’d produced a three-hour program on the 100th anniversary of the Yankees.

“They didn’t believe him. But he had his media credentials with him, and, of course, he got the job. He’s now an associate producer with the MLB network.”

New York’s longest-running sports call-in show has hit another milestone.

On Sept. 29, WFUV celebrated the 40th anniversary of its successful One on Oneweekly sports broadcast, a Saturday-afternoon show that has trained hundreds of Fordham students in hosting, producing, engineering, and writing for broadcast media.