I settled into a seat in the back of a small classroom on the third floor of Keating Hall. It was just my second week at Fordham University. I was a somewhat shy freshman in a room full of upperclassman.
A diminutive, unassuming, older man wearing a newsboy cap walked in without much notice and settled in behind the desk in the front of the class. Everyone quieted down.
Then he spoke.
I don’t recall the words, exactly. But the ground quaked.
I had gone to Fordham because I didn’t get in to Columbia. Those were the only two schools where I had applied. On my Father’s advice, I was going to college in New York City, the city I wanted to work in and live in after college. “Why go to college in Boston or Indiana if you want to end up in New York,” he would ask. It made sense. He always made sense.
I had fallen in love with public speaking in high school. As a student at Iona Prep in New Rochelle, NY, I had competed in competitive speech and debate, reaching Catholic School national finals in extemporaneous speech and student congress.
First Columbia, then law school, then politics. That was the plan. Or maybe I’d be a news anchor like Tom Brokaw. I was smart and got good grades at a good school. I thought I was Ivy League material.
But really, I loved sports way more than politics. I loved debating more than studying legal briefs. My essay for Columbia was about Dave “The Hammer” Schultz, the hockey enforcer. Probably not Ivy League material.
In my first week at Fordham I went to the radio station, WFUV. There were three workshops to choose from, music, news, and sports. I was always a sports fanatic and used to do play by play into a tape recorder when I was a kid. Yeah, I wanted to check out the sports workshop.
And there I was, in the back of the classroom, mesmerized by Marty Glickman. He was a legendary figure in sports broadcasting, an Olympic athlete, and a fascinating man. Marty was the original voice of the Knicks and the Football Giants. In the early days of sports broadcasting, his name was synonymous with college basketball. At the tail end of his career, he became the radio voice of the Jets. And he loved to teach.
Marty’s thundering baritone barked his mantra, “Consider the listener!”. Marty was ordering us to realize, at every moment, how we sounded to the person listening.
The man who INVENTED basketball play by play on the radio was TEACHING it every Tuesday in a little class room on the third floor of Keating Hall.
In that first workshop, I realized two things:
- I wanted to be a sports broadcaster and play by play announcer.
- I knew nothing about how to really do it properly.
So I came to that classroom every Tuesday for four years. I listened to Marty Glickman instruct us on play by play mechanics for every sport, critique our tapes, and tell stories gleamed from an incredible life. I learned description, delivery, and how to use my voice. I learned how to be a professional.
And most of all, I learned I wanted to be great at it.
Tuesdays with Marty gave me a north star. In my darkest days, when it looked like it might not happen for me and when a life-altering health diagnosis made the future frightening, I could look up at that star and follow it where I wanted to go.
Life doesn’t always go as planned. Some things, out of your control, will rock you to the core. Often, you may lose sight of who you really are.
But if you’re as lucky as me, you’ll find people in your life who will awaken what’s inside of you. And it will happen when you least expect it. Even on a Tuesday.
