Mixie new voice of Astros short season affiliate

(May 16, 2019) Though Joe Mixie has spent most of the past two years broadcasting sports on college campuses, he’s longed to be the lead voice of a minor league baseball team. Mission accomplished. An STAA member, Mixie has been hired to handle play-by-play and media relations for the Tri-City ValleyCats.

The ValleyCats are the Troy, NY-based short season affiliate of the Houston Astros.

“I have wanted to spend a summer as a No.1 in the minor leagues since beginning my play-by-play journey during my sophomore year of college,” Mixie says. “After working as the No.2 during parts of the summers of 2016 & 2017 for the Bridgeport Bluefish, I got a taste of what it was like, and I’m very lucky that it lined up a couple of years later.”

Mixie spent the 2017-18 academic year as an athletic communications and broadcasting assistant at Jacksonville University in Florida. Since September, he’s held a similar position at Siena College in New York where he is the voice of Saints women’s basketball.

Mixie learned of the ValleyCats opening last fall from a co-worker on the Siena campus. “My boss is good friends with the ValleyCats’ communications director and he does part-time work at our basketball games,” Mixie says. “As the winter went on, I formally applied for the position and went through the interview process. I was able to keep the connection fresh by seeing the person who would eventually hire me on a weekly basis at basketball games.”

A 2017 graduate of Liberty University, Mixie joined STAA his senior year of college. “I was originally introduced to STAA by a professor in college and have been a member for two-and-a-half years now,” he says. “This is my fourth position that I have picked up since joining STAA. Three were jobs that were listed by STAA.

“STAA allows me to stay up-to-date with the latest sports broadcasting job postings with daily email updates, and has ample broadcasting resources that I use frequently when calling different sports.”

Before moving to Siena, Mixie was a runner-up for different full-time college communications positions three times in four months, including a position at Siena that is different from the one he has now.

“Patience, hard work and the willingness to be available have prevailed,” he grins.

(Visit Joes website).