"I was hanging out with a friend, and he had checked out a camera from the university," Snow recalled of the cold night in December 1995. "We were going to go to a basketball game, and I had an idea."

The notion was to videotape the game, Snow providing the play-by-play. The Cougars, then as now, received next to no coverage for their athletic programs, so head coach Craig Hodges was in favor of Snow's brainstorm.

From that experiment, a career was born.

"People had told me to work in the computer industry, but since I was 7 years old, I've always wanted to be a sportscaster," Snow said. "I grew up listening to Jim Durham, Wayne Larrivee, John Rooney and the late Jack Buck."

Instantly, Snow found holding a microphone was better than holding a job with Ticketmaster. With a partner, the resident of Chicago's Morgan Park community formed ISNet America to feed audio coverage of sports events across the Internet.

After several years of covering Chicago State, Snow recently decided to concentrate on established Catholic League schools, beginning with Brother Rice. He had covered Catholic League sports beginning in 1996, but only football in recent years, with coverage of Chicago State basketball taking up his winters.

"This is like coming home," Snow said in the Rice gym before a recent basketball game. "I feel welcome here."

Snow, 37, said his Netcasts have drawn between 500 and 1,000 listeners on a given night. In some cases, that's as many or more people than are in the gym for a game.

"In terms of audience support, it's a success," Snow said. "In terms of finances, it's a bit of a struggle. Advertisers used to say if there's no terrestrial (over-the-air) radio, they weren't interested. But that's changing. What I've learned is that, if your product is good, sponsors will jump all over it.

"With Internet broadcasting, I've had to do sponsorship in a different way. It's not just the commercial. It's getting the word out for the sponsor through fliers advertising the game and on the Web site. We're beginning to show a little profit."

Snow, who is single, has a voice made for radio. He augments his Internet income with public-address work at the HoChunk Sports Complex in Lynwood, as well as home games of Chicago's Washington and Harlan high schools, and wants to expand his business as quickly as possible. He'll add some Brother Rice road basketball games just before the playoffs, then cover home baseball games at the isnetamerica.webs.com Web site.

"I introduced video at the last Brother Rice game, but I don't have the manpower for that right now, so we'll just go with audio until I do," Snow said. "Next year, we'll have full Catholic League coverage. I want to turn this into a full-time living."

Alvin Washington, Snow's original business partner, has a similar operation going in St. Louis, including posting highlights and interviews on YouTube. Snow, now working solo, plans a like expansion.

"The post-Chicago State era has some promise," Snow said.