LARRY PUNTENEY is a state champion bowling coach & a health care consultant AND a sports broadcaster. All at the same time, sort of. An interesting life for a Council Bluffs, Iowa native who has made his way in Lincoln, Nebraska [and beyond.] Recorded October 2, 2024
BEN STRAUSS covers the media business, including the sports business and sports media for the Washington Post, which includes the networks, the RSNs, the personalities and innovators. He talks about the ‘tenuous’ nature of sports journalism and the strength of sports media.
STEVE PHYSIOC is a now-retired sports broadcaster who will soon be publishing his fifth novel. He was with the KC Royals from 2012 to 2022. He has also broadcast games for the LA Angels, Cincinnati Reds and San Francisco Giants, as well as football and basketball games on various outlets over the years. We talk here about the Royals, writing books, the decency one brings to the business, and the personal things that have guided his life. Steve's books are: The Walls of Lucca, Above the Walls, Wa...
CALLUM WILLIAMS broadcasts soccer for Apple TV's MLS Season Pass, ESPN, CBS, DAZN and other outlets in Europe and around the world. He has broadcast for two MLS clubs Sporting Kansas City and Minnesota United. The Birmingham, England native first came to the US in 2011 as a 21-year-old just to see what it was like living and working in the US. He went home for a few years but is now firmly committed to living and working in America and to MLS. We talk here about the state of American soccer, the...
JACOB PADILLA has been covering sports in Nebraska for about a decade, since graduating from Creighton. He covers Nebraska volleyball, Creighton men’s basketball and high schools sports. Jacob talks about the Huskers annual hunt for a national VB title, its coach John Cook and the recent ESPN E60 documentary about the team. Recorded August 26, 2024
STU POSPISIL has been a sportswriter at the Omaha World Herald since the early 1980s. He was the 2022 Nebraska Sports Writer of the Year, from the National Sports Media Association. Here in 2024, Pospisil starts his 41st season covering high school sports for the biggest newspaper brand in Nebraska. He provides insights into how the coverage is put together; how to keep track of about 300 high school programs; a little history lesson on 8-man and 6-man football in Nebraska; a look at the transfe...
JEN KARSON STRAUSS is Director of the ESPN E60 documentary “No Place Like Nebraska,” which airs August 25, 2024 at 5:00 p.m. ET on ESPN and will then be available on ESPN+. This is the story of a Nebraska volleyball season that started with 92,003 fans at Memorial Stadium and ended with a loss in the NCAA title game in Tampa. This conversation focuses on how she and her colleagues put this project together and delivered the hour-long documentary about a college women’s volleyball team in the mid...
DENNIS DODD has been with CBS Sports since 1998, reporting on college football. We chat here about the upcoming season, the biggest story [it's the playoffs!], the national picture, the two big conferences, the changing nature of the business, Scott Frost, Huskers and Matt Rhule, and more. Interview Recorded August 14, 2024
CHRIS SCHMIDT co-hosts the Morning News for three hours at KFOR radio in Lincoln and the Hail Varsity program, two hours of sports talk in the afternoons on KFOR and other stations around Nebraska. He also is part of three podcasts talking about sports in various formats. He does more than 25 hours of live radio and streaming every week. We talk about the challenges, covering the Huskers, the upcoming election and much more. Interview Recorded August 5, 2024...
DAVID BERRI teaches economics at Southern Utah University. He is the author, with Nefertitii Walker of UMass-Amherst, of the new book “Slaying the Trolls: Why the trolls are very, very wrong about women and sports.” This is a conversation about that book and its content, which looks at women in sports, including the biases, the challenges, the opportunities, the history. RECORDED August 9, 2024
MICHAEL BRUNTZ has covered Huskers football for CBS Sports's Husker 247 since 2011. In 2024 he starts his 18th season reporting on the Huskers. He attended and wrote about the Big Ten Media days in Indianapolis in late July 2024. We talk about that, the coverage of the Huskers and the prospects for the team in Matt Rhule’s second season as head coach. Look for the question about 46 minutes in about the Huskers being in the conversation of “Blue Blood programs.” Recorded: July 26, 2024...
NICK BADDERS is the Broadcast and Media Manager for the Omaha Stormchasers, the Royals AAA team in the International League. He’s in his second season with the Chasers. We talk about his progress as an announcer, what he has learned in 18 months on the job in Omaha. The Bay Area native also has some thoughts about the Oakland Athletics moving as well as calling games remotely.
CONNOR CLARK is in his first year as the broadcasting and media relations manager of the American Association's Lincoln Saltdogs baseball team. He spent two summers in college working with the former PxP announcer Michael Dixon. Clark graduated from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in May 2024. We chat here about the job, about getting started in the profession, about his long-term professional ambitions.
MOLLY ROBINSON is co-host of the midday program “Three Man Front” on WJOX Radio in Birmingham, Alabama. She was on the scene when MLB celebrated Negro Leagues baseball and Willie Mays, with the Giants and Cubs playing at Rickwood Field. The Nebraska graduate and Alabama native talks about her first full time radio job and the impact the game and festivities had on her and her workmates. Recorded June 21, 2024
DOUG DUDA - the 2022 Nebraska Sportscaster of the year - is the Sports Director of ESPN Tri-Cities in Kearney, Nebraska where he has been for about 27 years. He's worked in Central Nebraska in 'local' radio for more than 35 years. We talk about what a guy does in the middle of the summer to keep it lively on his "Doug and Daddy" radio show.
AARON OBERHOLSER has been an analyst and on-course reporter for NBC’s Golf Channel since 2013. He’s a former PGA Tour player whose first win came at the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am in 2006. As a junior at San Jose State in 1996 he won six college titles, matching the number of a Stanford sophomore named Tiger Woods. Aaron worked the US Open for NBC and the Golf Channel and much of this conversation focuses on that tournament, and its exciting finish and the drama associated with it. And an exte...
JACQUI OATLEY has quickly become a fixture in American soccer broadcasting. On Fox Sports, she worked the Men's World Cup in Qatar in 2022 and the Women's World Cup in Australia/New Zealand in 2023. Oatley is doing the Euros 2024 this summer on Fox Sports. She is the lead voice on CBS Sports for the NWSL. The native of Wolverhampton continues to do the EPL and much more TV and radio work in her native England. This is the story of how this woman got into the broadcast business and how far she's ...
GEOFF EXSTROM is the Director of Communications and Media Relations for the Omaha Supernovas of the Professional Volleyball Federation. In his first season as the media relations director, in the first season of the league’s existence Omaha won the championship. We chatted before the season about his new gig. This is an update of a kind of what-did-you-learn conversation. This interview was recorded June 6, 2024.
MAX OLSON is Senior Writer covering college football for The Athletic. He was one of the early hires there, following a stint with ESPN. Max is a Nebraska native, a graduate of the University of Nebraska journalism college. He spends his time covering the games, the portal, the off-field news including NIL and the new world of directly paying college athletes. This interview was recorded May 9, 2024.
Michael Serazio researches and writes in the areas of media and communication. He is professor of communications at Boston College. His latest book is "The Authenticity Industries." He's also the author of "The Power of Sports: Media and Spectacle in American Culture." He chats here with John about the condition of sports journalism, the sports media industry, sport and its place in American culture, and a whole lot more. This interview was recorded May 10, 2024....
Elijah Herbel is the producer and co-host of "Hail Varsiy Radio," from Hurrdat Media. It is flagshipped at KFOR Radio in Lincoln and heard around the state 4-6 p.m. weekdays. Elijah started with the show while he was in college at Nebraska and has been with host Chris Schmidt now for about five years. It is fundamentally a show about Huskers sports [with heavy emphasis on football] on the radio but as he explains in this conversation it is expanding....
RICKY LOPEZ ESPIN is a former soccer player at Creighton. He played professionally in Salt Lake City, Los Angeles, Miami and Fort Lauderdale. He is now a color analyst for a number of television outlets, including MLS, MLS Next Pro, and USL. He’s been broadcasting for about three years and already has aspirations of broadcasting World Cup games.
JOHN BAYLOR will enter his 31st season as the radio voice of the Huskers Volleyball team in Fall 2024. He has added some television work, calling games on News Channel Nebraska for the Omaha Supernovas of the Pro Volleyball Federation. We talk about the Huskers, the new volleyball league and some of the distinctions between doing radio and television.
CHRIS WITTYNGHAM is a young American soccer announcer. He does games for MLS Season Pass on Apple TV+ and Serie A games on Paramount Plus and CBS. He does other soccer announcing as well, including radio for Inter Miami of MLS. He represents the new generation of soccer announcers; he’s young, multilingual, multicultural and learned the business calling hundreds of matches in front of a TV monitor.
JAVIER ORTIZ is the general manager, California for the Latino Media Network. He manages radio stations in Fresno, Los Angeles and Las Vegas. He also manages the company’s relationship with the Los Angeles Dodgers Spanish-language broadcasts. Ortiz has worked in a number of roles in the radio and television business and has worked in marketing and media with professional sports teams. The Latino Media Network is a two-year old company whose co-founders and CEO are all Latina....
JOSH PETERSON co-hosts the "Unsportsmanlike Conduct" radio show with John Bishop, 2-6 p.m. weekdays at 1620 The Zone radio in Omaha. They've been together for nearly ten years. Sports talk radio in Omaha appears to be alive and well. Josh says Caitlin Clark is the 'biggest start in college basketball" - woman or man. We also talk about finding the chemistry of radio hosts, the 'journalism' of sports talk, and the need to be both entertaining and informative.
John Shrader looks at the changing nature of American soccer broadcasting and the young people who dream of making this their long-term career. They would be the first generation of American announcers who started their careers working only in soccer.
STEVEN CALDWELL is a former professional soccer player – in Scotland, the English Premiere League, English Championship and Major League Soccer. He’s a Scotsman who now plies his trade in Toronto, where he runs an academy; his highest profile work is as a television analyst for TSN. We talk here about the role of the TV analyst, the emergence of soccer in North America, his view of the future of Major League Soccer [and you may or may not be surprised what he thinks of the long-term future of ML...
MICHAEL DIXON is the Play by Play voice of the Lincoln Saltdogs of minor league baseball's American Association. This winter [summer Down Under] Michael has been announcing games for the Melbourne Aces of the Australian Baseball League. He talked with me from Melbourne about what the work he's doing, baseball's place in Australian life, and what this opportunity means to his career and future prospects.
DAVE JOHNSON is the original voice of DC United of Major League Soccer, and has been for nearly 30 years the radio voice of the NBA’s Washington Wizards. Dave was for the first 27 years of its existence the TV voice of DC United, but that ended when Apple TV+ took over the national television contract for MLS. He talks about not being one of the announcers selected for Apple, the emergence and impact of young soccer announcers, his work with the Wizards and WTOP Radio. Interview recorded: Decemb...
