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Issue #90
by L. Swift and Jeff McQ
Radio Graduate Callan McClurg
Callan was placed as apprentice with Radio Connection mentor Chris Torrick at KRLY, 107.9-FM in the San Diego area. Even with his passion and natural ability, Callan recalls he was caught off guard at first.
“I just walked in ill-prepared, thinking I was just going to take notes a watch the show,” he says, “But Chris is a big believer of blessing by fire, and he put me behind the mic my first night. And I winged an interview and stuttered through it at the open. But then once I got a flow and rhythm, everything clicked. It became natural.”
As he worked through his apprenticeship, Callan made the most of the advantages offered by being in the studio, including working his own contacts. A personal high point was when he leveraged his status as a broadcasting student to reach out to WNBA star Candace Parker (of the Los Angeles Sparks) via Twitter, and landed an interview with her—followed soon after by an interview with New York Liberty guard Candace Wiggins. These experiences brought out yet another passion of Callan’s—interviewing athletes from a human angle, telling their personal stories, which may very well evolve into something unique for his career.
“This [interview with Candace Parker] wasn’t an average one-on-one media member and athlete interview,” says Callan. “This was more of an open forum interview, go to Starbucks, grab coffee, and talk with your best friend for an hour or two…These pro athletes, they don’t get the chance to talk about growing up with their family and how they found their love for sports. And then they’ve been talking about their career, how far it’s gone from high school and college and into the pros and what they want to do in their future…the interview hit a hundred listens and a hundred likes in six hours after it was posted.”
The interview with Candace Wiggins evoked a similar response. “After we had wrapped up our conversation,” Callan recalls, “she said, ‘This was the best interview of my career ever…You didn’t ask the same questions that I hear on a day-to-day basis. You made this more of a personal connection, and that’s what was the best part about it because this was just a conversation we were having.’…That comment made me choke up a bit.”
Now graduated from the program, and busy with his new job, Callan is excited about his future, and grateful for the opportunities he’s had through the Radio Connection.
“Between the interviews I got to do,” he says, “and even the blogs I’ve written about a few people, that’s opened so many doors, to the point where I launched the YouTube channel to cover the WNBA…I got to meet a lot of athletes through the program. I made a lot of great connections through the program…The program is what I owe it all to, because that was my media credential basically to get these interviews, to write these stories, and get these other jobs under my belt.”
Recording Connection mentor Jesse Rothman in Terminus’ B room.
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