BY CHARLES COSTELLO
Adding yet another piece to its programming, the WFUV (90.7 FM) sports department announced on its One on One sports show last Saturday that beginning this Monday the station would begin airing a weekly coaches’ show available to listeners online at WFUV.org. The show will broadcast from the Marketplace, the main student cafeteria at the Rose Hill Campus, every Monday evening from 6:30 to 7:30. The first broadcast of the show, called “Monday Night Quarterback,” airs this Monday.
“The object is to get more students interested,” Bob Ahrens, the Executive Sports Producer at WFUV, said in a telephone interview this week. “In terms of the audience we’re gearing it [toward students]. We’re doing it here in front of the students. This hopefully will help the student body become more interested and active in the teams.”
The WFUV football broadcast team of Brian Clark and Gregg Caserta, who rotate as the play-by-play announcers, and analyst Alex Middlesworth, will be hosts of the show this fall. The show will feature seven segments each week. It will open with a highlight package, and commentary, from the previous game. Then head coach Tom Masella will be interviewed live, followed by an interview with one of his assistants in what will be known as the “Open the Playbook” segment. “Inside the Huddle” will follow, with the hosts interviewing members of the Fordham football team. Next, “The Press Box” segment will bring in a rotating reporter from either The Ram or The Observer, Fordham University’s two student newspapers, to talk about the team. Then, in “Ask the Coach,” the audience will be given the opportunity to ask Masella questions. Finally, the hosts will take a look at the upcoming game.
“This will be a normal coaches’ show, done professionally, the way it should be done,” Ahrens said.
Ahrens sees this as a win-win for all parties involved, and says that the coaches, administration, and station are all behind the move.
“We have an opportunity to do something here that will help the team, the athletic department, the students, and us,” he said. “Both the athletic department and Sodexho (Fordham’s food service provider) are participating in this. We’re partners in this. It benefits everyone.”
A show like this is made possible by the opportunities the internet presents. Given the success of the station’s music format, cutting into WFUV’s programming on 90.7 would not be an option, so the ability of the sports department to broadcast on the internet is an opportunity they can take advantage of.
“The internet gives us a chance to do things with Fordham sports that we would not otherwise be able to do,” Ahrens said. “We can do more on the internet. It can be archived, it can be downloaded.”
“I think we need to cover Fordham sports better,” Ahrens continued. “Basically we’ve gone from what amounted to 40 something events to 120 events. I’m not looking to do more Fordham play-by-play, but we do need to give more coverage to Fordham sports.
And though the show will be broadcast in front of a live studio audience consisting mainly of students, Ahrens expects alumni to be a part of the listening audience.
“The show is aimed at a Fordham audience – students and alumni,” he said. ”What we’re doing should be of interest to the alumni. They’re a part of the audience.”
When basketball season arrives, it will be Dereck Whittenburg’s turn to appear in the Marketplace. Ahrens said the name of the show will change. For now, he’s excited to get things started Monday night and interested in seeing how it all plays out.
“We have the location here and we have an audience,” Ahrens said. “We have to cultivate that audience. We can’t do it without Fordham. If the teams are representative and we make it interesting and entertaining enough [it will be successful].”
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