(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).