Ryan Radtke, a Broadcaster from Tucson to the Olympics
Chase Dulude interviews the longtime former Reno Aces radio voice who has had a wide ranging career taking him to major competitions and across borders.
Ryan Radtke was the voice of the Reno Aces from the franchise’s inception in 2009 until 2019. Radtke now works for Westwood One Sports as one of their top play-by-play analysts for college football, the NFL, March Madness, and women’s softball. He has also worked as play-by-play lead for several events in the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics. In this interview, I got to talk to Ryan about his early career, Olympic experience, and future plans.
Q: What made you want to get into broadcasting first?
RR: Like most people, I grew up wanting to be an athlete. But when I got to high school, it became very evident to me that my athleticism or lack thereof, was going to prevent me from playing much further. I wanted to stay involved in sports somehow; it was just something I loved my entire life. And I had always been really intrigued by the broadcasting side of it. And so I was actually given an opportunity in high school to get involved and start doing some things and I just loved it. And right away, I just said, “this is what I want to do with the rest of my life.”
Q: Where did you get your start in broadcasting?
RR: My senior year, a couple weeks before the school year started, (my coach) came to me and he said, “well, we’re getting two foreign exchange students. One of them is 6’7”, one of them is 6’8”, they’re both basketball players. And so I’m going to need your spot on the team…then, a couple of weeks later, he came back to me, and there was a local cable access channel in our area. He had this idea of putting our basketball games on this local cable access channel and we had a little TV studio at my high school. And so he said, “hey, would you be interested in calling our basketball games? And that was kind of my first thing that I ever did. And I just, I loved it right away, a buddy of mine and I did it and I had so much fun with it. And that kind of launched it for me to be honest.
Q: What was your first big break in broadcasting?
RR: Between my junior and senior year, I started working at the campus radio station at the University of Arizona and a guy that I worked with there, was interning at the flagship station for U of A football and basketball. And he had (asked) me, “I’m graduating, would you be interested in taking over my internship?” So I said, “yeah, of course.” So I went over, he introduced me to the guy that he had been working for. I ended up interning there over the summer. Then in the fall, they came to me and they said, “well, we’re going to change the format of the station a little bit.” So the guys that had been doing a sports talk show and doing pre and post game stuff for U of A football and basketball, they were moving them to an afternoon News Talk slot, so they didn’t want them doing the Q&A stuff anymore. So they basically said, “we’re gonna give you a chance to do this.” So they said, “we’ll give you through the football season to kind of try it out. And if you do, well, then we can talk about making it more permanent.” So I made it through football season, and then they ended up hiring me and that was kind of my first job. So I was doing pregame and postgame for U of A football and basketball and I was doing a little bit of U of A baseball play by play. So that was kind of my first break.
Q: What was it like doing play by play for the Aces for 11 years?
RR: It was a lot of fun. I had been in Tucson when the team was in Tucson, and when my partner got hired by the Houston Astros, they gave me the number one job, so I had been there as the number one guy in Tucson from 2006 to 2008. And then when they sold the team, I was given an opportunity to come to Reno. And so I ended up, you know, being there for the first 11 years of the franchise and it was great. I mean, I enjoyed it. It was certainly an experience coming to a new city and starting with a brand new team and a brand new ballpark. There were definitely bumps in the road, but I think it was a very valuable experience for me. I think I learned a lot about myself. I think I grew as a broadcaster. I think I grew as a person. And it was definitely something that helped me on my professional journey to be sure.
Q: You did work for Westwood one with the PyeongChang Olympics. How did you find out you would be doing that?
RR: When Westwood One hired me in 2017, they offered me a full time slot with them (for) college football and college basketball. Then he goes, “you know, by the way, we do the Olympics, and you know, we need people to be part of that. Would you be interested in being a part of that?” And I said sure. And so it was part of my contract that I was gonna be on the Olympic team that went to PyeongChang. And so that was still working for the Aces at the time. I was in a hotel room, and I got a call from another one of my bosses, and he said, “okay, what do you know about downhill skiing?” And I said, “not a whole lot.” Then he goes, “okay, what do you know about luge and bobsled and skeleton?” And I said, “literally nothing outside of what they are.” And he said, “great, start studying. That’s what you’re going to be doing in PyeongChang. And that was it. And so I did. I started studying like crazy. I learned as much as I possibly could, and I ended up going to South Korea and doing the Olympics, which is something I never thought I would do. But it was an absolutely amazing experience. One that I would not trade for anything. It was unbelievable.
Q: How different was that experience from what you had done in the past?
RR: It was night and day, because when you grow up playing basketball, playing baseball, watching football, you know what’s going on. You know the players, you know the teams, you know the rules. Now suddenly you’re in a foreign country, you are in a totally different environment. You know, you’re not in the press box that you’re used to. And, you know, look, you can study all you want. You can know as much as you possibly can, but it’s not the same as having grown up around it, knowing the players and you know, you don’t know all the rules because look, it’s impossible, right? Like, give somebody the baseball rulebook even if you give them nine months and be like, Okay, do you know every rule? No, because a lot of it you don’t know until you actually see it happen. And so it was very, very different. I mean, I was really excited to go, but I also had a lot of trepidation because I hold myself to a really high standard, and I was like, “I don’t want to embarrass myself. I don’t want to embarrass the company. I don’t want something to happen.” I actually got sick right when I got there. I lost my voice. Which just added to it because I felt helpless. I don’t know. To this day. I don’t know what happened to me. I literally got off the plane, I was fine the next morning, and went over some press conferences. I was fine. And the day after that I woke up and just had no voice. And I’m like, “these people flew me all the way to South Korea, and now I can’t do the job they brought me over here to do.” I mean, I was mad, I was embarrassed by the whole thing. But I ended up getting through it. Although I’ll tell you that, you know, after I did the Olympics. I came right back into the NCAA tournament for the first time. My voice was not right until like June of that year, after I started the Aces season. So it was crazy. It was a very, very unique and different experience for sure.
Q: How do you think it went overall with having little experience with those sports beforehand?
RR: I think it went great. Honestly, I was fortunate that I was paired up with a great partner for downhill skiing, a guy named Doug Lewis, who had been an Olympian and had been around skiing his whole life. He was great about kind of taking me under his wing, teaching me some of the nuances. There was a time after the first day where we called the run and he just kind of pulled me aside and he goes “hey, you know when you said this?” And I go, “yeah,” he goes “don’t say that. You sound stupid. Say this instead.” It wasn’t like a big deal, but it was just one of those things where, if you know the sport, you’d be like, “that doesn’t really sound right.” You know, it’s like if you’re watching a baseball game, and they said, “the score is three to eight.” I mean, it’s, it’s correct, but it’s not correct. He didn’t chastise me for it, he was really good about just kind of helping me along. I asked a lot of questions. He answered a lot of questions. And it was awesome. With bobsled and luge, that was really kind of a trial by fire. I watched a lot of those sports leading up to the Olympics. I tried my best to kind of catch on to some terminology. I tried to figure out okay, how do I call this, but it was still trial by fire like you just get in the booth and you start doing it. So it was just kind of figuring it out. And it’s a little unfortunate, in that, by the end of the Olympics, I really felt like I had a pretty decent handle. on it. So (leaving) was tough because I felt like “man, if I had another two weeks here, I think I can really crush this, I really feel like I’m getting the hang of this. It’s repetition. So I thought overall, I was very proud of the work that I did, and I think my bosses were happy with it. And so that’s, you know, at the end of the day, that’s what matters.
Q: So would you like to be able to do that again in the future?
RR: I would love to be involved with the Olympics again. Unfortunately, Westwood one no longer has contractual rights to the Olympics. But if the opportunity ever arose, I would go back in a heartbeat. I tell people doing the Olympics is a lot like doing the NCAA Tournament, that first weekend where it’s literally nonstop work. I mean, you’re working 12 to 15 hours a day, and you’re absolutely exhausted. But it is incredibly satisfying, and it’s so much fun. When I got home for the Olympics, I felt like I could have slept for a week. I was exhausted. I had nothing left. But I would absolutely do it again. If they called me tomorrow and said, “hey, we worked something out. You want to go to Paris?” I would go in a heartbeat. Despite the fact I hate Paris, I would go to be a part of the Olympics again.
Q: So do you have an end goal for where you want to be in broadcasting or is there anything else you want to achieve?
RR: I think in many ways, I’m kind of where I want to be. I love what I do right now. I mean, look, I’ve been with Westwood one now since 2017. I have enjoyed every minute of it. They have been great to me. They have helped me immensely become a better broadcaster. They’ve given me the opportunity to do things that I only dreamed of doing. You know, calling SEC football games, going to places like Alabama and Florida to do football is incredible. My bucket list thing for so long was to be part of the tournament, and my last year in Nevada, the team got to the tournament. Unfortunately, they lost the first round, so it was really quick, but now I’ve gotten the chance to be part of the tournament all the way through the regional rounds. I’ve done the women’s softball College World Series the last couple of years, which I absolutely love doing. I became a huge softball fan when I was in college at Arizona. And I love doing that event. It’s something I look forward to every single year. I would just say that these last few years at Westwood One have been incredibly satisfying for me, both personally and professionally. And I just love it. If somebody told me tomorrow, you could do this for the rest of your life, or until we force you to retire. I’d probably do it because I love it. I do Sunday Night Football now every week. I’ve done NFL games on Thanksgiving. I’ve done NFL games on Christmas. I’ve done games internationally. I’ve gone to London to do games. I’ve gone to Mexico City to do games. I’ve done playoff games. I did the largest comeback in NFL history two years ago. I mean, I love doing the NFL, I love doing the tournament, I love doing the softball World Series. There’s some other events I’d love to, I mean, if there was ever an opportunity to be part of the Men’s College World Series in Omaha. That’s always something that I’ve looked at and haven’t got a chance to do. I’d love to do that. But like I said a minute ago, if they told me tomorrow to sign a lifetime contract, I probably would because I just love what I’m doing. I look forward to it every single week.
https://westwoodonesports.com/ryan-radtke/
Q: Do you have any advice for anyone starting out in announcing hoping to get where you are now?
RR: Yeah, I think a couple things. I mean, number one, I would say do your best to get an internship, so you can see what it’s really like behind the scenes to get a feel for what it really takes to do this job. The other thing I would say is to do it as much as possible. If that means going to a local high school field and sitting up in the corner of the bleachers and calling a game into a recorder of some kind, just so that you can listen to yourself and start critiquing yourself, do it. Do it any way you possibly can. And then I think beyond that, try to find a mentor, or somebody who’s willing to listen to your stuff and give you honest feedback. And that’s a hard thing to do sometimes, because when we’re young, we’re insecure. I was very insecure. I probably still am in a lot of ways but sometimes, when I was young, I shied away from asking people to listen to my stuff, because it was great if they told me “hey, you’re great,” but I didn’t necessarily want to hear, “hey, you got to get better at this,” or “this is not very good.” But it’s what you need. Like, you know, you’re always gonna have people around you that are just gonna say, “oh, you’re great, you’re great.” But that’s not true. When we start doing anything, we have to get better. It’s why we have teachers in school. It’s why your parents don’t just say “do whatever you want.” You need somebody to kind of help you and somebody to tell you “hey, here’s where you can improve.” And I think that’s really, really important. 99% of the people that are critiquing you are not doing it in a personal way. They’re doing it because they’re trying to help you. I’ve been very fortunate that the people I work for now, especially my first couple years with the company, did that a lot for me saying, “hey, you’re doing a good job, but you need to work on this.” Early in my career, I got chewed out one time. I’ll never forget it. My boss called me and basically said, “are you okay?” And I said, “what do you mean?” And he said “you were horrible last night.” And we spent like an hour on the phone and we talked through it. And he was right. Like, everything he brought up, I couldn’t argue it because I’m like, “no, you’re right. I wasn’t very good.” But stuff like that helps. So I think that’s important to have people around you that are going to tell you the truth, but do it in a way of trying to help you get better and improve what you’re doing.
Q and A by Chase Dulude shared with Reynolds Sandbox
