Mike Kennedy Reaction

He's the voice of Wichita State and one of the most popular figures connected to Shocker Athletics. I grew up listening to his voice call WSU basketball games and have heard him so much, I could recognize his voice from almost anywhere.

But one thing...I had never seen Mike Kennedy.

He looked different than what I expected, but it was still pretty cool meeting with Kennedy and listening to him talk over what he does on the radio. It was interesting to hear his background in life and how he got started in radio.

I think I could relate to him when he started covering Shocker volleyball games, in terms of trying to learn the terminology and the integral parts of the game. I knew next to nothing about volleyball when the Eagle sent me out on my first WSU volleyball game, but I quickly picked up some terms.

It was interesting to hear that he does everything by hand. He puts together tons of notes before games and he does it all on sheets of paper, instead of on a lap top. I found that very interesting, and in some ways, limiting because you can't look stuff up on the internet if you need something else. You are confined to what you wrote down before the game started.

I don't really have any interest of advancing in the radio industry, so that part of the discussion didn't really intrigue me as much. But I do think I could apply some of what Kennedy said to news writing and how I write my stories, so it was still a pretty cool trip.