Persons of Interest

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 sports in the area and in this podcast, we discuss how Jon discovered his interest in sports journalism, his experiences writing in college, what his career has been like so far, and more.

Follow Jon on Twitter: @JonPoorman

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 Los Angeles. The company develops new programming and delivers live events, music specials, and branded features for broadcast, digital, and in-venue entertainment.

Prior to forming WebStream Sports, Servizzi was an instructor at Butler University, leading courses in video production, multimedia development, and professional development. While at Butler, Servizzi oversaw student-produced coverage of athletic events. 

(Bio Courtesy, College Sports Video Group)

Follow John on Twitter: @jservizzi

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. He’s interviewed the biggest names in sports, covering Super Bowls, World Series, All-Star Games, and Final Fours.

For the past decade, Ackerman, 40, has called college basketball play-by-play for the University of Missouri, the Missouri Valley Conference and various national rivalry games, including Syracuse-Georgetown, Kansas-Kansas State, and North Carolina-N.C. State. He’s also handled play-by-play duties for the Missouri Valley Conference.

In this podcast, Tom describes how he was introduced to the world of broadcasting, developed an interest in radio and TV and some of his favorite moments that he’s seen.

Follow Tom on Twitter: @Ackerman1120

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 competition and more. We also dive into our shared interest in barbecue and the process of smoking meat.

Follow RJ on Twitter: @CoachRidge

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 Tommy Lynch, currently an admissions coordinator at Indiana State University.

Follow Tommy Lynch on Twitter: @ISULynch

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 for students and staff. He uses the unique power of video to tell stories and I encourage you to visit his YouTube channel and the FZiam YouTube channel to see his work.

I recorded Juan’s speech using my iPhone as I was sitting in the audience so I apologize for the audio quality but I hope you can get past that to take in his words. 

Follow Juan Wilson:

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 others). 

Follow Ryan on Twitter: @RyanFagan

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 uploaded so be sure to check out the Flashback podcast. In this episode, I caught up with Marcus to find out what was new with him as he has found a new interest as a college basketball on-air analyst, his thoughts about the current state of college basketball and much more. We also touch on a new project he is working on for 2020.

Follow Marcus Wilson on Twitter: @CoachWilson5

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, MO.

Follow Marcus Wilson on Twitter: @CoachWilson5

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-visit the last decade of Valley basketball, we talk about the current landscape of college basketball and more. It was a fantastic discussion and if you’ve heard Mark on TV or follow him on Twitter, you know that he is very opinionated and he even shared some stories that he doesn’t often discuss in the public.