By Chloé Margulis
Staff Writer
During the 2014- 2015 academic year, WCWP, the campus radio station, broadcasted a majority of the school football, baseball, and basketball games. In 2013, LIU sports broadcasting occurred regularly, on a daily radio talk show called the Sports Hit List. Once the students broadcasting the show graduated, sports coverage became minimal.
Photo courtesy of Michael Nicosia
Senior Broadcasting major Deandre Wilson was among one of the few who raised sports broadcasting from the proverbial ashes during this academic year after the crew of sports broadcasters graduated in Spring 2013. Wilson didn’t think he would get into radio, but he became interested after broadcasting his first football game on Sept. 27, 2014.
“I think if you ask Mike Nicosia, he’ll say it was one of our best games too,” Wilson said. “Just from there, that was the point we knew we could do this. And for the rest of the season, we just got it—we had to do our research, but once the plays get going and you’re in the game, it’s amazing.”
Sophomore Accounting major Michael Nicosia attended a meeting in spring 2014 for anyone interested in doing sports broadcasting. Nothing came to fruition at the meeting, especially since the sports broadcasting department was practically empty. As Nicosia’s interest in sports broadcasting grew, he tried to bring more people into the program. The team started with the fall football season, broadcasting almost every game.
“After week two [of the football season], when we found out we couldn’t send our past play-by-play and color commentators on the road, [alumni] Peter Belotti asked myself and Deandre to step up and take over those roles,” Nicosia said.
“We traveled to Merrimack with the team and we were in the stands,” Wilson said. “After that game, we kept going to every game and were even able to interview coaches.”
Nicosia broadcasted play-by-plays, and Wilson covered color commentary during the games. “After our first football game, the sports broadcasting began to boom,” Wilson said.
Dan Cox, WCWP’s director, picked the sports that were broadcasted this semester. He felt football was the most important, especially with Homecoming and LIU Post’s newly built stadium. This year, the department brought in alumni Jeff Crowl and Phil Lebowitz to broadcast the Homecoming game because of it is of great importance to the university.
Every football game, and most home baseball and men’s and women’s basketball games were broadcasted. “We have done every Pioneer game, except for two basketball games versus NYIT, and a couple that overlapped with football season,” Wilson said. Wilson hopes that the team will broadcast more games next year, especially away games.
Wilson and Nicosia said that they see this program growing. Although many of the establishing broadcasters are graduating this semester as well, including Wilson. “Mike is the cornerstone for the sports department to keep going,” Wilson said.
All students can join the broadcasting team, regardless of major or area of interest. Just head on over to the WCWP station and inquire about becoming a broadcaster. Everyone must go through training, including voice training, learning the board, and how to deal with malfunctions.
Peter Belloti, a WCWP alumnus who currently works at CBS News, “came in and helped us out, training us from the ground up on how to broadcast games, how to look at a play, and then call it,” Wilson said. Stay tuned next semester for more coverage of LIU sports games from WCWP.
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