Courtesy The Jambar

(April 21, 2009) "There's a base hit down the line in right field! Iacobucci's going to round first, going to second base and the Penguins are in business with no outs in the bottom half of the second inning!"

This is just one of the many comments that can be heard live on http://www.ysusports.com by 23-year-old Ryan Gasser during all of the baseball and softball games this season.

Gasser, a 2004 graduate of Hubbard High School, was not totally decided on what he wanted to do the rest of his life.

"In high school, I thought I was going to be a computer programmer. I quickly realized that was not the right career path after I accidentally blew up a computer while using it too much," Gasser said

After one destroyed computer, Gasser put two and two together and was able to figure it out -- almost.

"After that, I just fused two things together that I liked to do, and that was sports and writing," Gasser said.

After high school, Gasser and his sports writing dream headed 170 miles west to Bowling Green State University.

He tried journalism, but realized the print side of it all was not the fit for him. It was not until he found the student organization, The Bowling Green Radio Sports Organization, that he had it all figured out.

Within the first three weeks of membership, the student organization gave him his first opportunity in radio broadcasting after putting him on the air in a sports talk show.

"Immediately, I was on the talk show. I did it for about two hours and I knew that I loved it," Gasser said. "From then on in, I was hardcore into it and they gave me a lot of opportunities … eventually everything fell into place," he added.

After the sports talk show gig, Gasser was incorporated into men's and women's basketball. He was hit with another lucky roll of the dice heading into his sophomore year

"In my sophomore season, they didn't really want to put me on the air, but we were short staffed and they threw me on a football game which is unheard of for someone so young," he said.

At his young age of 23, Gasser knows how lucky he's been to get experience in broadcasting.

"I'm a firm believer that you not only do not know what you want to do until you try it out, but you also don't know if you're cut out for it," he said. "At 18-19 years old, getting on a radio is unheard of and to be 19-20 years old and getting to do a division one football game is absolutely ridiculous … it's been an amazing ride, and I encourage it to anybody," he added.

Gasser is also responsible for starting the broadcast for softball at BGSU and Youngstown State University.

"We were all about baseball, and I asked, why not softball? We had too many guys by the time I got to be a junior and senior, and we needed more opportunities," he said.

After all of the hard work and opportunities put in the past five years, Gasser will be graduating from YSU this spring thanks to the generosity of the Sports Information department.

He has been working as an intern for YSU Sports Information in the media relations department throughout the year.

Even though he will be graduating in May, Gasser plans on finishing out the rest of the broadcasts for YSU's baseball and softball games this season, and plans on going back to BGSU to pursue his graduate degree.

"I'm on the seven year plan now to get two degrees," Gasser jokingly stated.