(August 29, 2011) As recently as four days ago, Kevin O’Rourke figured to be parked in front of aTV for the start of college football season. Now, though, he’ll be broadcasting play-by-play from a stadium filled with 45,000 thousand screaming fans. An STAA client, O’Rourke has been named football and basketball voice at Charleston Southern University.
The Bucs kick-off their season Saturday at the University of Central Florida.
“I’m excited about doing Division I sports and having a chance to do both football and basketball,” O’Rourke says.
Following this weekend’s visit to UCF, the Bucs play at Florida State. “That is going to fun,” O’Rourke says excitedly.
O’Rourke was named a 2010 STAA All-America after finishing as the second ranked collegiate sportscaster in the country during his senior year at Rutgers University.
The CSU hiring process certainly was unusual. Shortly after the position was made public in July, the person in charge of hiring left for a job at another school. With that, the hiring process at CSU came to a screeching halt. As recently as last Friday, the school did not know who they would hire.
“I applied in July but didn’t hear back,” says O’Rourke. “Then Friday, the Athletic Director [Hank Small] called me. We met on Saturday and that was it.”
During their meeting, Small went out of his well to tell O’Rourke how helpful his STAA Talent Page was during the evaluation process.
“I didn’t think I was going to get [the CSU job] but it worked out well for me,” O’Rourke grins.
O’Rourke’s ties to Charleston helped his candidacy. He spent this summer as a broadcasting intern with minor league baseball’s Charleston RiverDogs.
“I really love Charleston from getting to know [the city] with the RiverDogs. It would be a great area to stay,” says O’Rourke.
(Visit Kevin’s STAA Talent Page.).