Persons of Interest

In his own words from JakobEliason.com , here's a bio of my guest in this episode: "Right now I’m living, working and spending all my free time in downtown Memphis. I left my 9 to 5 job in November of 2019 to pursue work that I was passionate about. My wife and I sold our house in August of 2020 to ride out the pandemic from our favorite place in the world. Here’s a few things I’m involved with: M...

Springfield News-Leader Sports Reporter Wyatt Wheeler makes his return to the podcast to discuss Missouri State Football, Bears Basketball and Lady Bears Basketball. We also discuss: How he handled the fall high school sports season A new program he has in place mentoring college students Joining Art Haines as co-host of "Sports Talk" Follow Wyatt on Twitter: @WyattWheeler_NL

Charlie Marlow is a sports anchor/reporter who joined the FOX 2 News team in April of 2008. He came to FOX 2 from WLNS-TV, the CBS affiliate in Lansing, Michigan where he was a sports anchor/reporter for two years. Prior to that, Charlie worked for WLUC-TV, the NBC affiliate in Marquette, Michigan as the weekend sports anchor. He has won or shared in winning 4 Michigan Association of Broadcaster A...

Drew Richards bio via UNCPBraves.com After leading Lander to its most regular-season wins in 20 years, as well as a Peach Belt Conference Tournament title, as the head coach of the Bearcats in 2019-20, Drew Richards returned to Pembroke in March 2020 as the 16th head coach of the Braves.  It will be the second coaching stint at UNCP for Richards, who helped guide the Braves to a 113-43 (.724)...

Katy Winge works as an analyst, reporter, and host for Altitude TV and the Denver Nuggets. She previously was the in-arena reporter and an associate producer at the Pepsi Center, hosting the pregame and halftime show Courtside Countdown. Basketball became Katy's passion in 3rd grade. Through her early playing years, a dream to play in college developed - and blossomed after Illinois State Universi...

Graphic Design has been an interest of mine for a long time so it was only a matter of time before it became a podcast topic for me. My guest in this episode is Steve Wilson from Clarksville, Tennessee. Steve is a graphic and web designer and brand specialist that has done his share of design work over the years. In addition, he’s also written a book titled “The Why of Sports Design.” Steve and I...

The name Nafis Ricks might sound familiar to some of my Missouri State friends because he was the starting point guard on the 2010-2011 Bears Basketball team that won the regular-season Missouri Valley Conference championship. But his story isn’t just about basketball. Nafis made the most of his opportunities to get an education while also overcoming personal struggles. In this podcast, he describ...

Matt Gardner has made the most of his career in sports. Working in Tennis, NBA, and currently the Vice President, Digital Media & Emerging Technology for the St. Louis Blues, he shares some insight into how he got started working in sports, how technology has shaped his career, and developing relationships with the athletes to tell their story. Matt also discusses the work of the St. Louis Blu...

The “official” Julie Smith description :  Julie has been teaching media literacy and media-related classes at the university level since 1997.  She holds her B.A. in Public Relations from the University of Tulsa and her M.S. in Mass Communication from Southern Illinois University – Edwardsville.  Julie is currently on the faculty at Webster University in St Louis. She is the author...

My guests in this podcast are Bill Behrns, Ryan Haley, Austin Hansen, and Jeremiah McCallie. These four gentlemen were part of Loyola’s run to the final four, serving as part of the athletic department staff in communications, social media, and video content. Together we watched the Ramblers take on Miami and the guys shared stories and thoughts about the game and the run to the final four. Watch...

Chester Lampkin first joined WUSA 9 in December 2019. Chester comes from KSDK-TV in St. Louis, Missouri, the sister station of WUSA 9. As a child growing up in St. Louis, Chester has always had a strong interest in weather. While growing up, he experienced some big weather events, including the "blizzard" of 1982 and the Great Flood of 1993. Chester spent three years at KSDK-TV as weekend morning...

Highly respected sports journalist Paul Suellentrop joined Wichita State as a senior communicator to provide comprehensive coverage of the Shockers' momentous first season competing in the American Athletic Conference and beyond.  Suellentrop's stories, podcasts, and videos on WSU sports will be posted primarily on GoShockers.com and will also be made available to news media outlets...

Earlier this year, The Springfield Cardinals announced the promotion of Matt Turer from Public Relations Coordinator to the organization's newly created position of Public Relations & Digital Media Specialist. Matt joined the team in November 2017, leading the social and digital media efforts, serving as the team’s public relations contact and digital marketing copywriter. In this podcast, Mat...

David Kvidahl covers prep sports in the St. Louis area for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and STLHighSchoolSports.com. In this podcast, I talked with David about his time covering prep sports in town, some of his favorite prep sports memories, and the recent all-decade team selections that were a hot topic on social media. Follow David on Twitter: @DavidSTLhss Follow STLHighSchoolSports on Twitter: @...

Joel Adam has been a physical education teacher and coach at Holt High School, Wentzville Middle School, and Wentzville South Middle School in the Wentzville School District for 30 years. He has coached baseball, softball, basketball and football, winning conference championships, district title and reaching state finals on multiple occasions. The longtime educator and coach was recognized as Holt...

Kansas City native Jon Poorman has worked to be a writer since high school and carried his goal forward to college, writing for the student newspaper and eventually serving as news and sports editor and the editor in chief. Now, he’s the sports editor for The Courier of Montgomery County daily newspaper, that serves Conroe, Texas, located just north of  Houston. He leads the coverage of prep...

John Servizzi is Chief Technology Officer at Tupelo Raycom. Servizzi founded WebStream Sports in 2006, bridging experience in high-level sports television production and high-quality, low-cost digital production methods. WebStream was acquired by Raycom Media in 2015 and merged with Tupelo-Honey in 2017. The combined Tupelo Raycom has offices in New York, Indianapolis, Charlotte, Nashville, and Lo...

Tom Ackerman is Sports Director at KMOX, overseeing a department that serves as the flagship station for the St. Louis Cardinals. He is also the lead sports anchor on KMOX’s “Total Information A.M.” and a host on the Cardinals Radio Network.  In 18 years at KMOX, Ackerman has worked as a host, play-by-play announcer, anchor, and reporter since beginning his career at the radio station in 1997...

RJ Abella arrived at South Carolina University in the spring of 2013 as an assistant coach for the indoor and beach volleyball teams and In 2015, he transitioned to full-time beach volleyball assistant coach. Prior to that, he was an assistant coach for the Wichita State Volleyball program. In this episode, RJ and I discuss a few of the ins and outs of beach volleyball, recruiting, national compet...

When I first started this podcast, the intent was to share stories of people that would hopefully provide some inspiration to others. The background of my guest in this episode checks that box. He’s the first in his family to make it college. And when get got there, he had to figure things out. In the process of figuring it out, he found things he was passionate about. My guest in this podcast is...

The Martin Luther King Jr. holiday on Jan. 20, 2020, marked the 25th anniversary of the day of service that celebrates the life and legacy of MLK. This year in Wentzville, Missouri, the community Celebration of MLK featured keynote speaker Juan Wilson. Juan is currently the coordinator of diversity and awareness for the Fort Zumwalt School District, implementing diversity and awareness training fo...

Ryan Fagan covers Major League Baseball and college basketball for the Sporting News. He has seen many notable events in person and as a member of the Baseball Writers' Association of America, he also votes for the MLB Hall of Fame. In this podcast, Ryan discusses his background, how his career got off the ground, some of the events he's covered and the current state of journalism (sports and othe...

Marcus Wilson serves as the Executive Director of the Monsanto Family YMCA in the heart of St. Louis but before that, he was part of the men’s basketball staff at Saint Louis University as the video coordinator. And before that, he had a phenomenal college basketball career that became a pro career overseas. We discussed his past, present and eventual future in a previous episode that I’ve uploade...

Two years ago, Marcus Wilson came into the MVC Office to record a podcast interview to reflect on his past, present, and future. This episode from 2017 is republished from that interview where he discusses his career at the University of Evansville, winning the 1999 MVC Player of the Year Award, playing overseas and his current role as Executive Director of the Monsanto Family YMCA in St. Louis, M...

If you’re a college basketball fan like myself, chances are you’ve watched a game or two on ESPN and you’ve heard the voice of my guest in this episode. Mark Adams has been an ESPN analyst since 1999 and I had the opportunity to work with him during my tenure at the Missouri Valley Conference. During our conversation, Mark and I discussed his coaching career, how he got into broadcasting, we re-vi...