Uncovering Reno’s Sportscasters
A Look Inside the Voices of Reno Sports
By: Jake Chandler
The journey that sportscasters take has no instruction manual. The journey to get behind the microphone has no one correct route. When you ask a sportscaster about the specific route they took, you will be given a long, detailed, yet interesting story about having to take various opportunities before succeeding. When listening to these stories two things always jumps out: hard work and opportunity. These words are no exception to local Reno sportscasters either.
Ryan Radtke, the play-by-play sports broadcaster of the Reno Aces and University of Nevada, Reno football and basketball, is no stranger to hard work and seeking opportunity. Radtke grew up listening to broadcasting legend, Bill King, announce the San Francisco Bay Area sports. It wasn’t until Radtke got the chance to sit in the radio booth of a San Francisco Giants game in high school that Radtke began to realize that sportscasting was something he wanted to pursue. While in high school he was a broadcaster for the school’s basketball games on the school’s television station.
When Radtke attended the University of Arizona, he got the opportunity to host the student run sports talk show before going on to be a part of the professional broadcasting team for the Arizona Wildcats basketball and football pre-game, halftime and post game shows. He also broadcasted for the school’s baseball team.
Two years later Brett Dolan, the play-by-play voice announcer of the minor league Tuscon Sidewinders baseball team, welcomed Radtke on as the second voice announcer. After three seasons, Dolan pursued a job with the Houston Astros, and Radtke was promoted to the lead announcer for Tucson. In 2008, the Sidewinders were sold and relocated to Nevada. The Sidewinders name became the Reno Aces, but their announcer remained Radtke. When Radtke learned that the University of Nevada, Reno(UNR) was looking for a voice announcer for their football and basketball teams, Radtke saw the rare opportunity and traveled there while the Sidewinders were playing a series in Sacramento to interview. A few weeks later, Radtke was announced as the new voice of the University of Nevada, Reno, basketball and football team.
Radtke described his current work schedule as “a lot of preparation”. He explained that with the UNR sports, his job becomes a full year schedule especially as baseball season winds down and moves into football and basketball. When discussing a typical work day, he reaches out and gives advice to people looking to get into the business of sportscasting. He exclaims that it is a lot of work and for students to get internships in order to get connections.
He states that he has seen people come into the internships and positions and want to immediately get behind the mic. “I remember first working here (Reno Aces) and I had to do jobs like get coffee and make copies, and things like that before I got a chance to announce.” Radtke could not express how much work it involves, he explained that people come in thinking they can do the job because they can talk sports with their friends, but it is more than that.
When discussing stories that got people behind the microphone, there isn’t a story that compares to that of Jace Edwards. Edwards who is known in Reno as the former morning host of 105.7 KOZZ Classic Rock station, and a host on 94.5 ESPN Radio. Edwards has worked on many radio stations across the country, including Louisiana, California and Nevada. Born and raised in Oregon, Edwards joined the Marine Corps at 17.
While attending school in the Officer’s Program and still in the Marine Corps part-time, was when he first began getting into radio on the college station, which did not broadcast far. He soon made his way to a small AM station outside of Portland, Oregon where he worked production and op-boards. “I was making like $800 a month, which covered the insurance on my car, so for the first six months I lived in my car” Edwards humbly states. After working there for about a year, he began trying to make more opportunity. He wanted to work at a different station, so he found out when the programming director got off the air, and as he would walk by the front desk Edwards would be there. “Mr. Martin? I’m Jace Edwards, I just wanted to let you know that I am ready to start whenever you need me. Here is my latest take and resume, just let me know when you’re ready.” After six weeks of personally giving his latest take and resume the program director just said, “Come with me”, and that was how Edwards got started in classic rock broadcasting in Eugene, Oregon.
Edwards described the position as having to work production on a syndicated program for four hours and went live for two. He had no direction, he didn’t what to do or say, he said it was advised to just see what happens. When he went in to talk to the program director about it, he just gave him three things to work on. Edwards just kept working. After about two years working in Eugene, the station has changed to an alternative rock station. The station had picked up and it happened that a Las Vegas radio station owner had been driving through and heard him, got his home number and called him offering him to work in two weeks. This is where Edwards got his start in Las Vegas as the as a night time DJ for an R&B station.
He began doing events and more talk radio at the Las Vegas station until he got in contact with the program director for a station in California, where he began doing weekends at a rock station. He soon moved up to doing more times and he did interviews, talk radio and late night radio. He began to earn a following.
In 2003, Edwards moved to a station in New Orleans, before landing a job at a rock station in Reno, where he also began his sportscasting career. The station that he got started also needed radio broadcasters to broadcast on their other signal, 94.5 ESPN, and Edwards said he could do it. “I didn’t know a thing about sports, and the first job they gave me was to judge a slam dunk contest.” Edwards worked for ESPN doing a small local spot during a national broadcast, as well as did an afternoon sports trivia spot on Thursdays. Edwards worked for 105.7 KOZZ and 94.5 ESPN until recently when he purchased two signals out of Winnemucca, NV to begin running his own station starting this summer, all he is waiting for is FCC approval.
Edwards is more than a radio host with an interesting story, he is a radio host with a lot of experience and wisdom. His advice is endless when it comes to approaching and improving in radio. The method he preaches is to find just three things to work on from one take to the next. Work on those three things and you will get better. When facing opportunity, Edwards never said no, even when faced with jobs he had no experience in. He learned that, “You got to be ready for any assignment, it doesn’t matter what it is, and you got to make sure that when you do it, they realize that you not only did it but you did it without their help, better than those people can.” Through his long journey, Edwards reflects and states, “The mistakes I made in my career have paid off.”
The road to becoming a radio host or a sportscaster is a long path that requires a lot of work and the need for flexibility, whether it is for a student station broadcaster like Ryan Radtke, or a former marine looking to get into radio like Jace Edwards. The opportunities to seek are all around us, as Edwards states, “You never know who is listening”.