By Emmanuel Berbari
Raffaele Elia, a soon-to-be senior at Rose Hill, grew up in Yonkers, 20 minutes from the gates of the campus, passionately watching sports. He had a keen interest in what was taking place on the television screen; from the graphics and stats to the announcers. He lived a typical teenage life, was the valedictorian of his high school and enrolled at Fordham as pre-med.
In two weeks, he will become the student manager of sports broadcasting powerhouse, WFUV, a public radio station headquartered in the basement of Keating Hall that has produced several million-dollar television and radio careers.
All it took was a mid-semester change of course freshman year and a roll of the dice from the department’s long-time Executive Producer, Bob Ahrens.
“Bob was the only one who got back to me,” said Elia. “He liked my drive. I’m glad he saw something, and it gave him a reason to contact me again. I’m eternally grateful to Bob for that.”
Elia discovered a natural talent, and became the department’s go-to producer for the better part of two years.
“It was unexpected,” said Elia. “The opportunity fell into my lap, and it got me on a path that I don’t regret.”
Elia moved into more of an on-air role this past year, serving as the lead play-by-play broadcaster for Fordham Women’s Basketball and Men’s and Women’s Soccer, which had always been his goal.
“I always said as a kid that I wanted to be a sports broadcaster,” said Elia. “Talking sports for a living? You can’t beat that.”
Breaking through in the sports media industry is no easy task. An increasing number of people wanting to get behind the microphone and burst upon the scene means that there is a high-level of competition and very few open spots. Elia takes a simple yet effective approach, and lets the rest take care of itself.
“You listen. You never stop listening,” said Elia. “It’s not going to be great when you first do it. You listen to yourself, the guys better than you and the guys worse than you. You never turn your ears off to the criticisms.”
At WFUV, Raffaele’s rise to the spotlight comes with a great sense of responsibility. The station’s sports department has produced extremely successful sports broadcasters such as Mike Breen, Michael Kay and, more recently, Ryan Ruocco, among others.
“It motivates more than anything, because why not you?” said Elia. “There were guys here 10-15 years ago in the same station as you, doing the same things as you, and now they’re living the dream. They were doing your job.”
Elia hopes to continue that lineage once he graduates from Fordham.
“I would love to do play-by-play,” said Elia. “Anything where I can be on-air is my ultimate goal. In 10 years I hope I can get to that point, but to do that I need to stay in the industry, whether that’s producing, engineering, traveling or anything where I’m near the industry.”
Tapped as the next sports manager of WFUV, Raffaele will take over and lead the current staff and incoming group of trainees in 2018–19.
“If I can put people in positions to succeed, I’ve done my job,” said Elia. “I won’t be any different than the rest of the staff, the only difference is people will come to me with questions. I want that responsibility, and I hope they see that if I can get here, they can too.”
