March 21, 9:31 p.m.: SU men’s basketball season has officially been over for three minutes. Nick Wright, co-host of WAER 88.3’s Double Overtime post-game show and a senior broadcast journalism major, just arrived at the station with Joe Putnam, his partner on the show.

With a 74-70 loss to Clemson in the semifinals of the NIT, the SU careers of seniors Demetris Nichols, Terrence Roberts and Daryl Watkins are over.

Nick Wright’s soon will be, too, and he’s not happy about it.

Wright looks haggard, run down. He slinks back and forth between the rooms, head down, shoulders sloped forward. He’s skinny, with thin, bony arms and a long nose that droops down his face. Stopping in the hall, he leans back against the studio wall.

He has other shows besides this, ‘What’s Wright’ on Z89, Sundays, noon to 2 p.m., another with SU finance professor Boyce Watkins, but WAER has always come first. Now it’s his last post-game show here, and Wright is breaking up.

‘For this to be the last show I’m gonna do, I’m not gonna lie, it chokes me up,’ he says. ‘This is, this is, I don’t know. For me, this is like my graduation. I mean, yeah, I’ll graduate and whatever and that’ll be cool, but for me, this marks the end of college and kind of the beginning adult push, which is a little scary. So, I don’t know. It should be an interesting show.’

He chats with some of the other guys for a minute before snatching up his black leather jacket and heading outside, his eyes red.

‘I’ll be right back,’ he mutters on his way out. ‘I have to go compose myself.’

Wright’s been an on-air firebrand during his career at SU, the kind of guy who gets people talking. He’s right there with the football and basketball teams during the season, chronicling their ups and down while simultaneously making a name for himself.

He’s as close as it gets to being the voice of SU sports.

After a few minutes, Wright bounds back through the door, eyes alight. The interminable montage continues, so he paces again through the rooms as time counts down.

When the show’s intro music pings through the studio, the staff scrambles into their places in the different rooms. Wright gives Putnam one final fist pump and saunters into his studio, a gray room with a roundtable in the center, six black mikes hanging in the middle. Wright sits at the back head of table facing the glass window of the production room, Putnam to his right.

No time to sulk. Showtime.

*

Showtime is why Nick Wright came to SU in the first place, for the chance to be on the radio and talk about sports. SU is where he’s wanted to be since he was 12, when he met Bob Costas at a convention back home in Kansas City, Mo.

I want to do what you do, Mr. Costas, Wright said. Where did you go to school?

Syracuse University, Costas said. And I worked at WAER.

Wright decided that would work for him, too. He’d come to SU, work at WAER and become a sports talk host. So he did.

He’s made a home in Syracuse.

Wright knows the city’s teams; four years watching and analyzing them makes that easy. He knows the city’s people; he hits up his barbershop on the corner of Bert and South Salina in South Syracuse almost everyday to rap with his barber Ali and crew.

And he knows the city’s darker side – the two stray bullets that strafed his car while driving down Fayette Street a few months ago are hard to forget.

Wright recently ended his run as sports talk show director at WAER, a lengthy, time-consuming job in which he oversaw a staff of more than 30 students. The week after graduation, he’ll be heading back to Kansas City to work as a weekend host and production assistant at KCSP 610 AM Sports.

While here, he’s developed a fresh, colorful style that’s smart and street-inflected. His thick, urban, Midwest drawl has a distinct tone that engages the listener as Wright asserts his opinions.

‘He does things that you wouldn’t think would work,’ said Andrew Fillipponi, a junior broadcast journalism major and fellow WAER staffer. ‘But because he is the person that he is, because he’s very quick on his feet, because he’s not afraid to ruffle a few feathers, because if he makes a point and maybe someone disagrees, then he’s not afraid, he’s not weak, he won’t back down.’

Wright’s body contorts and twists in his chair in the studio, all manic and animated energy. His arms often flail at his side while he makes his points, and he’ll stand up off his seat to lean into the microphone. On his Sunday afternoon show at Z89, Wright never stops moving during the breaks, bopping about to the rap music that plays over the loud speakers, singing off key with Lil’ Wayne and Mystikal.

‘He can be talking about a 25-point blowout and make it interesting,’ said Danny Parkins, sophomore broadcast journalism major and WAER staffer.

Wright’s still a work-in-progress. His voice squawks too much sometimes, and he can get ahead of himself when talking and sputter. He admits his knowledge of X’s and O’s sports information isn’t always rock-solid.

‘Nick definitely pays attention to the facts but obviously flaunts his own opinions and comes a lot stronger with them,’ said Putnam, Wright’s WAER co-host.

Wright understands he’s not all the way there yet.

‘I think I have a lifetime to go before I’m better at radio, before I’m as good at radio as I want to be,’ he said. ‘But I really do believe I can get there.’

*

There’s more to Nick Wright than the on-air showman, of course.

There’s Wright the idealist, who begs for the student media outlets at SU to work together and not backstab each other.

There’s Wright the worrier, who admits he’s afraid of being a fraud and that his talk radio confidence is sometimes a front.

There’s Wright the raconteur, who tries to dead-lift producers before he goes on the air, who once stopped a flip cup game at a party to bet $5 on his team.

At WAER, he’s been a helping hand to the staff and a friend as well.

That was his job as talk show director, to make sure everyone who worked hard got an opportunity to be on the air and improve, Wright said.

‘This is a guy who tries to be a bridge between people,’ said John Nicholson, professor of broadcast journalism. ‘This is a guy who listens. This is a guy who’s passionate about doing good things for and with other people.’

That’s just his personality, Fillipponi said. He’s agreeable, the kind of guy who wants to be your friend even if he is your boss.

‘I know people that will go there on a Friday when they don’t even have a tape or something to have him listen to,’ Fillipponi said. ‘They’ll just go there because they want to talk to him and see what he’s up to.’

Tape critique? Talk to Nick. Help with school? Talk to Nick. Personal advice? Talk to Nick.

‘He always makes himself available to pretty much anyone he meets, but especially the people he works with and interacts with on a day-to-day basis,’ said Sal Maneen, sophomore broadcast journalism major and WAER staffer.

Wright doesn’t make a big deal about all of this; it’s what he’s supposed to do.

‘There’s too many kids who come to the WAER talk show after being shut out of other opportunities, and thank me and talk to me, and act like what a warm environment it is, Wright said. ‘And I want to shake them and say ‘You shouldn’t be thanking me man, this is how it should be.”

*

Up until two days ago, though, for all his promise, Nick Wright’s future was up in the air. After months of searching, he still didn’t have a job for next year.

Talk radio is a cutthroat, intense business with nearly no slots available, especially for kids fresh out of college.

Nicholson said Wright is one of maybe three students to get a job on-air right after college.

‘Getting these jobs is extremely difficult for the same reason getting jobs as a TV reporter, as an actor, et cetera, et cetera,’ Nicholson said. ‘There are lots and lots of qualified men and women for every single job that opens. And so it’s very, very tough.’

Wright sent applications to the few places with openings: Green Bay, Wisconsin, South Lake, Michigan. He’d even offered to work for free at Syracuse’s Sports Radio 620 WHEN, as producer and engineer for six months, on the condition that he can do ‘What’s Wright’ on the air with regularity afterwards.

No dice.

That was until he got the call from the operations manager at 610 Sports in Kansas City offering the weekend host gig.

It probably won’t pay much, but it’s a shot.

‘Once he’s in the door, people will see how hard he works and how good he can be,’ Nicholson said. ‘And I’ll be stunned if he’s not a big success in the next 10 to 12 years.’

Wright’s hungry. And he’s confident.

‘If by the time I’m 30, I am not in a good position to be one of four or five best hosts in the country, I’m in the wrong field,’ he said.

He’s not 30 yet, so he has some time.

Time to enjoy the last few episodes of ‘What’s Wright’ before heading back to the Midwest. Time to study up on forensic science so he can graduate. Time to take in the last few weeks of college life.

*

Back at WAER on Wednesday, Wright kicks off his final post game show.

‘Well that’s the season, Syracuse,’ Wright says. ‘Disappointing at times, excruciating at others, but God, helluva lot of fun to watch…’ His voice is drowned out by the buzz in the production room.

Through the window, Wright and Putnam continue the show, taking callers, rehashing the season that was. The two are an odd couple. Wright is scrawny and raw, his plain white T-shirt hanging loosely off his gaunt frame. Putnam is rotund and cuddly, eyes squinting through his glasses.

Putnam is calmer, less excitable than Wright, less likely to get confrontational with the callers. He’s a big puppy to Wright’s junkyard dog.

And now Wright’s fired up. A caller is trying to tell him that a team of Andy Rautinses would beat a team of Eric Devendorfs, pitting the two SU guards in the kind of fantasy situation that only exists on talk radio.

‘Bill, set up the game, and we can lay bets on it!’ Wright shouts, his pitch rising. ‘Ten Andy Rautinses versus 10 Eric Devendorfs, the 10 Eric Devendorfs are winning every time, and they’re probably going home with the prettier girls.’

Putnam leans away from his mic laughing, while the producers in the adjacent booth join in.

Wright, chuckling himself, gets up from the mic. He stands upright and looks up at the booth, no longer hunched over, no longer depressed. His face breaks out in a wide smile dominated by his long, thin bottom lip. This is fun.

He only has an hour and half or so left at WAER, but at least he’s where he belongs.

SIDEBAR

…on Kobe Bryant: ‘Kobe Bryant’s so good; he just decides to score 60 points. He just decides to score 50 points. It’s not, he decides to try. He decides, ‘No, tonight, I’m getting 50.’ And no one can stop him.’

…on women’s college basketball: ‘Don’t give me the whole, ‘I enjoy watching the women’s games more because of the sound fundamentals you don’t usually see.’ Don’t give me that when you’ve got the No. 1 team in the tournament with one of their best players, a senior, on the free throw line, down one, .1 seconds left. CLANG, CLANG. Gotta love those fundamentals. Since when is free-throw shooting not a fundamental?’

…on the media stations at SU: ‘This university should step up and buy a local television station and have it staffed by professionals and have the professionals decide which students are talented enough to run it and be producers and be on the air. Syracuse University should have its own satellite radio channel, if you ask me. And we have professionals who can decide who’s good enough, and we should put them on the air. We have so many people who are going to blow up nationally, in the long term, who could be helping the school’s reputation.’

…on SU media convergence: ‘If we had like a, I almost want to say a council, of leaders from all the different student media places and we worked together and we shared stories and we promoted each other’s broadcasts, we the students could be so powerful.’

Published on March 28, 2007 at 12:00 pm