Each of these announcers shares a common heritage. They all got their start at WFUV, Fordham University’s public media station, which has been launching the careers of sports broadcasters for more than seven decades. Now, some of the history of the station has been preserved in a documentary titled Off the Air: The Legacy of WFUV Sports.

Evan Jaenichen, a Fordham College at Rose Hill senior and the video coordinator at WFUV Sports, came up with the idea for the documentary and pursued it as the capstone project for his new media and digital design major.

“I had started at WFUV last year and loved it so much,” said Jaenichen, who brought the idea to Bobby Ciafardini, the station’s sports director, and to Bob Ahrens, who retired in 2017 after two decades as sports director.

Ahrens helped put Jaenichen in touch with some of the most recognized voices to come out of the station, including Scully, FCRH ’49; Breen, FCRH ’83; Tony Reali, FCRH ’00, the host of ESPN’s Around the Horn; Bob Papa, GABELLI ’86, the radio voice of the New York Giants; and Chris Carrino, GABELLI ’92, radio voice of the Brooklyn Nets.

Vin Scully, the Dean of Fordham-Trained Sportscasters

The story of the station’s sports legacy begins with Scully, who said he used to call Fordham baseball games to himself while he was playing in the outfield at Rose Hill. He later called Fordham sports games on the air for WFUV, which was founded in 1947, his sophomore year. Scully says in the video that he was always enamored with the game.

“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 says.

Scully retired in October 2016 after 67 seasons as the voice of the Dodgers. He was inducted into the broadcasters’ wing of the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1982, and has received many other accolades, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He has inspired generations of broadcasters who have stepped up to the mic at WFUV.

“His vocabulary, his storytelling, his personality—everything. He just was perfect,” says Mike Breen, who recently became the third Fordham graduate to win a Curt Gowdy Media Award from the basketball Hall of Fame. “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.”

New York’s Longest Running Sports Call-In Show

In the years after Scully’s graduation, the sports department continued to grow, particularly during the 1970s, when Malcolm Moran, FCRH ’75, introduced One on One, which has become known as New York’s longest running sports call-in show.

“It was so much fun because I think for a lot of sports fans around the tri-state area, they had no way to express themselves like this,” Breen says in the video.

In the late 1980s, broadcaster Marty Glickman, who was best known for calling New York Knicks, New York Giants, and New York Jets games on the radio, became an adviser to the students at the station.

“I knew of Marty Glickman—at the time he was the Jets play-by-play announcer—[but]I didn’t know how impactful he would be on my life at the time,” Carrino says. “Marty’s voice is in my head every broadcast that I do. His mantra was ‘consider the listener.’”

Making It to the Major Leagues

After Glickman, Ahrens took over in the late 1990s as WFUV’s first full-time executive sports director.

“We were so fiercely and proudly student-run that we weren’t sure exactly what to make of a professional executive producer,” Reali says in the video, joking that when Ahrens told him he could cover Yankees’ games, that was all it took to convince him of the benefits of learning in a professional environment.

“I thought if we’re going to do this the right way, we should go to the major league games and train the students how to be broadcasters and how to do interviews,” Ahrens says. “I called the Mets and the Yankees. The Mets offered us one game, no clubhouse access … and [in]what was probably stupid at the time but became a very bold move, I turned it down.”

He followed up with a call to the Yankees and, after a discussion with the team’s media relations director, WFUV was granted a credential.

“We went from there to the Giants and the Jets. The following year, we went to basketball and hockey on an as-available basis and then a year later we had everything,” Ahrens says.

Current students say working at WFUV provides invaluable experiences—such as covering the Super Bowl, interviewing legendary players and broadcasters, and hosting live shows—not available to students at traditional college radio stations.

“It’s a real broadcast that’s actually going on at 90.7 FM to the entire tri-state area, so that’s one of the biggest audiences that any radio station can reach,” said Brianna Leverty, a Fordham senior.

Jaenichen said WFUV has helped him develop his love for storytelling. While he’s not sure exactly what professional path he wants to pursue after graduation, Ciafardini, his current sports director, thinks projects like this could be in his future.

“I think Evan is amazingly talented and the work that he has put out is a prime example of what he’s capable of doing,” Ciafardini said.

Jaenichen said it’s inspiring to know that the broadcasters he interviewed for the documentary were once in his shoes.

“It was a huge thrill to talk to people I’ve looked up to my whole life,” he said. “You realize that they’re just like you and they came exactly from where you are.”

Watch Off the Air: The Legacy of WFUV Sports

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