Ice cream truck delivers NCAA DII play-by-play job to Blavin
(August 31, 2017) Starting an ice cream truck business has helped Leo Blavin scoop up an NCAA DII play-by-play job. An STAA member, Blavin is joining KROX Radio in Crookston, MN as an account executive and the voice of University of Minnesota-Crookston football and basketball.
Blavin will also broadcast high school football, volleyball, basketball, hockey, baseball and softball.
“I’ll be calling NCAA Division II college football and basketball, which I didn’t anticipate being able to do so fresh out of school,” the recent University of Michigan grad smiles. “I know these opportunities wouldn’t have been presented to me if it weren’t for STAA.”
Blavin learned of the Crookston job while broadcasting for the Fayetteville SwampDogs summer collegiate baseball team. “The Crookston job came to me from an STAA job lead, while I was doing seasonal work for a baseball job I also discovered through STAA,” Blavin grins.
Blavin gained considerable sports broadcasting experience during his time on Michigan’s Ann Arbor campus. While that helped his Crookston application, it is a love for ice cream and entrepreneurship that Blavin believes got him over the top. “The fact that I had sales experience having started an ice cream truck business while I was in high school set me apart from a sales perspective,” he surmises.
Tidying up his personal website also helped Blavin’s application. “Having my own website that I created thanks to advice I’d seen on both the STAA message boards and the monthly [STAA Member Makeovers] Jon hosts, helped me make sure I had everything I needed ready for when the opportunity at KROX presented itself.”
As much as Blavin is eager to broadcast play-by-play, it isn’t what he is most looking forward to. “I’m more excited about the sales part of the job than anything else,” he says. “I knew I would have to contribute in other ways outside of play-by-play regardless of where I ended up after graduating. The sales aspect of my position with KROX will provide me with further experience to help me market myself down the road, while also allowing me to earn extra income.”
Blavin has been an STAA member since he was a junior at Michigan.
“STAA provided me a game plan for attacking the job market, especially before I graduated, while also providing plenty of information and critiques throughout the site that have already drastically improved my own broadcasts,” he says.
“Simply put, I would not be calling college football professionally this year if it weren’t for STAA.”
(September 13, 2016) Matt Bagley is now working at the station he grew up listening to. A native of Medford, OR and an STAA member, Bagley has been hired as Sports Director at ESPN 580 KTMT in Medford. With his administrative duties, Bagley will do news and sports updates, and broadcast high school play-by-play.
(February 25, 2016) Humility is a wonderful attribute but it was hurting Tim Slack in the sports broadcasting job market. It was only after Slack realized that a bit of self-promotion can be helpful that opportunity came his way. Now, Slack is joining the Fayetteville SwampDogs as their full-time Play-by-Play Broadcaster and Assistant General Manager.
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(April 3, 2015) As a new season of America’s pastime races towards opening day, STAA member Danny Reed has landed back in affiliated baseball – just in time for first pitch. Reed is the new Director of Broadcasting and Media Relations for the Bowling Green Hot Rods.