When Adam Young, a Mass Communications graduate this spring and an STAA client, agreed to leave the Metro-East and broadcast baseball games for the Swampdogs, a summer college baseball league team, in Fayetteville, NC, he hit his career out of the park.

“I’ve heard nothing but good things about them, and it’s also the chance to host a TV show weekly there and a lot of different things played into it,” Young said. “It’s also the chance to be the No. 1 broadcaster for a team and that’s something that, at my age, I really need that experience.”

Young said he will leave for North Carolina May 10, but he has already begun to work for the Swampdogs by working on media guides, press releases for the team’s Web site and commercials for ESPN Radio to air in North Carolina. He is currently writing a season preview for the media guide, which will be put on the team’s Web site and distributed to a local newspaper in Fayetteville.

Though Young said he is extremely excited to head to North Carolina, he said he would prefer to stay in the Midwest.

“[North Carolina is] not exactly where I want to be,” Young said. “I’d rather stay close to home because I grew up in Illinois, but it’s going to be an interesting experience, and I’m really, really looking forward to it because it gives me the chance to be the voice of a baseball team during the summer, and that’s exactly where I want to be.”

Young said he has always known he wanted to go into sports broadcasting. He landed a spot broadcasting men’s and women’s basketball his freshman and sophomore years for SIUE’s Web Radio. He said seeing the radio station and talking to the general manager and news and sports director sold him on coming to SIUE.

“I know that radio station in and out because I’ve been there every single day for the last four years doing just about everything,” Young said.

According to Young, everything on his resume has come through, whether directly or indirectly, working at SIUE’s radio station, WSIE, including being the first recipient of the Dewayne Staats sports journalism award, which began this year. Since receiving the award, Young said he has been in contact with Staats, and Staats has given him advice and written him a letter of recommendation.

“He’s definitely one of the idols that I look at when I think about my work,” Young said. “He’s the guy I want to be; so, it was very, very humbling for me to get that award, especially the first person that was given that award, so it’s definitely something I take pride in.”

Young received the Dewayne Staats award for broadcasting work he did on campus, but that was not the only recognition he earned. The Sportscasters Talent Agency of America selected Young as one of the Top 20 college sportscasters in the nation. Young said he submitted demos of his play-by-play for radio and television. The rankings of those 20 will be revealed June 4, and the top college sportscaster will receive the Jim Nantz Award, named after CBS Broadcaster Jim Nantz.

He’s also been recognized by the Cardinals, Rams and Blues organizations by having the opportunity to broadcast for them.

The opportunity to work with the St. Louis Cardinals came through broadcasting a SIUE basketball game on the road at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. He introduced himself to the UMSL broadcaster Joe Zydlo, who now broadcasts for McKendree University. Young said Zydlo later called him “out of the blue” and said he was hosting the Cardinals’ pre-game show on 1380 KSLG AM, a St. Louis-based all sports station.

For home games, he would be at the ballpark interviewing players and reporting live from the ballpark. According to Young, working with the Cardinals was “probably the most important job” he has had so far.

“Basically, they took a chance on a 19-year-old college sophomore covering the Cardinals and pretty much be part of the show every single day, and, obviously, I jumped at the opportunity,” he said.

Opportunity arose for Young once again when he landed a spot with the Gateway Grizzlies, a metro-area minor league baseball team, during the 2009 season.

“I got that pretty much from knowing the broadcaster for the Grizzlies through the radio station,” Young said.

WSIE Director of News and Public Affairs Tom Dehner said he has known Young for four years and that he has seen Young grow by leaps and bounds in “all aspects of broadcast performance and management.”

According to Dehner, Young would oversee the newsroom in Dehner’s absence.

“He set the standard for others who observed or followed or whom he would train. He would lead by example,” Dehner said.

As far as Young’s career opportunity, Dehner said it did not come as a surprise and that nothing Young achieves in life will come as a surprise.

“He’s going to go far because of who he is and what he believes,” Dehner said. Tom Atwood, one of Young’s professors at SIUE, was not surprised by Young’s recent success. And Young spoke highly of Atwood.

Young said one of the good things about the SIUE Mass Communications Department is that many of the professors, such as Atwood, have experience in the field.

“[Tom Atwood] is one of the professors in the Mass Communications Department that I grew up watching on TV on Channel 5 in St. Louis,” Young said. “There are many other professors here who’ve been in the business. They know what it takes to get the job done, and they can instill what they know about this business in us.”

Atwood said he has known Young for about three years and had him in two classes. He said Young was always good at producing news and sports pieces in class and that he thought other students were impressed with his ability.

“Everyone just knew Adam was the sports guy,” Atwood said.

According to Atwood, Young kept trying to talk him into doing sports stories and that Young has improved by “leaps and bounds.”

“You could tell he really wanted to be a sportscaster. I think his delivery was a little rough a couple years ago, and that’s where I think he has gotten better,” Atwood said.

Because of this improvement and Young’s passion for his career, he deserves the opportunity to broadcast for the Swampdogs, Atwood said.

“It’s really hard to get any job right now in broadcasting, and for him to come right out of SIU and go right [into a job]…he’s really a hard worker and he had to work hard to get that job,” Atwood said.

According to Young, one of the most important things he has learned at SIUE is that college is about more than taking classes.

“What you learn in the classroom is great, but the key is what you do outside of the classroom,” Young said. “You have to pay your dues. You’re going to be working long hours for particular places where you’re not getting paid, but in this business, you pay your dues.”

Young said he gave up a lot of weekend nights spending long hours studying after getting off a job he worked outside of the classroom getting experience.

“I think the professors do a good job of letting students know that’s what needs to be done,” Young said. “You’re not just going to get a job handed to you out of college. You have to build your resume, build your portfolio and that’s how you get the job.”