ESPN came to campus by way of ESPN Radio's "The Brandon Tierney Show." The show was broadcasted last Thursday, Jan. 21 to start off his College Tour 2010 of broadcasts with the Pirates hosting Louisville later that night. During the broadcast he conducted his show as normal in front of numerous students in attendance at the Pirate's Cove from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m.One of the special features of his college tour was the hope of having the head basketball coaches from the respective schools come on the air with him. However, due to scheduling conflicts, no time was able to be set for Pirate head coach Bobby Gonzalez to talk about the season on the air. Instead the show was not as much about the Hall's season up to that point as originally planned, but more on the New York Jets who had the AFC Championship a few days later. He was still able to talk enough about the Pirates season that he said the game that night was a "must win" for the Hall before ending his show. The students in attendance, as well as members of the band and cheerleading squads, were able to be a small part of the show as they cheered when the show was going to and coming back from breaks. The show also allowed students to see what goes on for a radio remote broadcast to run effectively and to get the best information out to listeners. These features of a radio show could be seen by the behind the scenes engineers coming up to Tierney giving him extra information along with alerting him of upcoming breaks. Tierney could also be seen checking his phone and computer for more information during the broadcast. "I wanted to get out and touch some of the younger listeners and interact with people," Tierney said. "Sometimes we have the tendency to get stuck in the studio and forget who you are talking too."This is the first time Tierney has done a college road tour stopping at local colleges in the New York area. Seton Hall was the first of eight stops. "There is no better time in life than college," Tierney said. "The world is starting to open up to the college student."Tierney, who is originally from Brooklyn, N.Y. graduated from Marist College, where he played baseball and majored in journalism. Originally hoping to be a sportswriter, Tierney knew one thing about his career."I knew I had to be around sports," Tierney said. "I wouldn't be happy as an adult and wouldn't be complete without sports." Since 1999, he has worked on the radio all over the country covering sports in markets coast to coast starting in Allentown, Pa. and working his way up to bigger jobs in Las Vegas and Detroit before coming home to New York in 2003. "I had to do a lot of moving and chasing better jobs," Tierney said. "A lot of hustle, getting into the car and going to the next job."While in New York again he had to move up the ranks, starting as an anchor before covering basketball and eventually getting his own show on air, first on the weekends and now on weekday mornings. Being on the radio in his hometown means that Tierney gets the privilege to follow his favorite teams more than any other with the passionate fan bases of the Yankees, Knicks, Jets and St. John's basketball. On the air he makes no effort to try and hide his biggest interests-basketball and baseball-especially for the New York area teams, always working those topics into his show. Tierney has already done a lot in his career, becoming one of the more popular voices on New York sports radio, but he still hopes to be able to do more. "I am nowhere near where I'm going to be," Tierney said. "If you stop evolving, people will detect that and will show in your work."Stephen Valenti can be reached at stephen.valenti@student.shu.edu.
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