Droves of students, faculty and staff shuffled into the Joyce Hergenhan Auditorium on Thursday afternoon, occupying the few available seats in the packed venue.

The audience members whipped out their smartphones, iPads and laptops to tweet, snap a quick photo, log on to Facebook and check in on Foursquare.

Brad Slavin, a freshman television, radio and film major, was one of those adding to the cyberscene through Foursquare and tweeting using the hashtag created by S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications officials, #Tirico, on his iPhone.

The viral publicity produced by Slavin and a room full of others created a social media rush centered around Mike Tirico, a 1988 Newhouse graduate. He is now the lead broadcaster for ESPN’s Monday Night Football presentation and the second lead broadcaster for ESPN’s presentation of the National Basketball Association.

The loud chatter of excitement and anticipation within the audience faded to a dull murmur as Tirico entered the auditorium.

‘Tirico is a Newhouse graduate who has excelled and made the school proud through his success in the broadcast industry,’ said Lorraine Branham, Newhouse’s dean, as she introduced him.

The crowd then welcomed Tirico with beaming smiles and gracious applause.

As he made his way to center stage, Tirico said, ‘Anyone know the score of the Yankees game?’

If anyone in the auditorium was unaware of Tirico’s specialized area of broadcast journalism, his remark gave it away — sports.

Tirico, a native of Queens, N.Y., attended Syracuse University as a broadcast journalism major. When he attended SU, Tirico was involved in multiple organizations on and off campus, including The Daily Orange, WAER, Channel 5 and UUTV, now known as CitrusTV.

‘The best thing you can do is get involved,’ Tirico said. ‘I was only at The D.O. for a brief time, but that was where I found out that I didn’t want to write. I liked the immediacy of broadcast and describing things as they happened.’

Tirico emphasized that stepping outside of the classroom and getting involved in organizations is better exposure to what reality is like in the communications industry.

‘To maximize your experience here at Newhouse, you have to go beyond the walls of this building,’ Tirico said. ‘You have to apply yourself and get involved in organizations that interest you.’

Tirico added that becoming involved in on-campus organizations is a great way to be exposed to media professions, but having internships is another way to develop skills.

Maddie Dockery, a sophomore broadcast journalism major and newcomer to CitrusTV said, ‘I’m not huge into sports, but he had really good advice about how we should look at our time at school as a great opportunity and get everything we can out of it.’

Tirico started to make a name for himself at SU in 1987 as the sports director at Channel 5, a local Syracuse CBS affiliate. After four years, Tirico joined ESPN as a SportsCenter anchor.

Over the years, he began to cover various sports, such as golf and tennis, as well as ESPN’s coverage of the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

‘Covering the World Cup was life-altering,’ he said. ‘The passion of the people and the uniqueness of South Africa was incredible.’

Tirico explained that prior to covering the World Cup in studio, he prepared by going to work: He read about soccer, watched previous games and then relied on his strengths as a broadcaster to cover the sport for the first time.

The best way to find a job that you love and enjoy doing every day is by exposing yourself to all the options and taking the lessons and skills learned with you into the future, he said.

‘The more instruments you play, the more likely it is you’ll be in the orchestra,’ Tirico said.

Tirico said he thinks students are currently in a great era because they are part of a change with the immediacy of the Internet. The ability to create content and communicate is now enhanced for students by social media, including Twitter.

‘Your generation is in such a good place because you know where the change is coming from and where it’s going,’ Tirico said. ‘I’m kind of disappointed about where we’re going, but in this industry, you have to be apt to change.’

acptachi@syr.edu

Published on April 3, 2011 at 12:00 pm