Born: Belleville, Ontario
Age: 25
Program: Sports Journalism
Previous Academic Credentials:
Bachelor of Science Degree (sports management), Bluefield College, Virginia.
Associate Arts Degree (physical education), Hagerstown Community College, Hagerstown, Maryland
(Summer 2009 - Matt Cooke and Andrew Murray with the Stanley Cup)
By age 10, Andrew Murray already had dabbled in hockey, baseball and golf. He eventually focused on baseball and by the time he was in 12th grade, had earned a spot on the Kingston Ponies baseball team.
After finishing high school, Andrew’s sporting prowess helped him net an athletic scholarship to play ball in the U.S. at colleges in Virginia and Maryland.
Along the way, Andrew caught the eye of some major league baseball scouts. Although he never cracked the big leagues, Andrew did find an audience doing play-by-play for ESPN radio in Bluefield, Va. That sparked an interest in sports journalism and his decision to enroll in Loyalist’s Sports Journalism program in September 2009.
We’ll let Andrew fill in the details in his own words:
“In August 2003, my grade 12 year in high school, I was playing for the Kingston Ponies. There was a day-long major league scouting camp scheduled in Kingston. So I showed up on the day in Kingston. But the organizers had made a big mistake – a mix-up over scheduling – and the camp was actually being held that day in Brockville. So my dad and I had to drive 50 kilometres to Brockville. By the time we got there, they were just wrapping up the camp.
They let me work out anyway. So, basically, I got my own tryout in front of all the scouts. It went well. I was the only one to get invited to the major league baseball open tryouts for players from across Ontario that followed in February 2004.
That was incredible. It was an indoor tryout. That’s where I met Toronto Sun baseball columnist Bob Elliott and Walt Burrows, head of amateur scouting in Canada for major league baseball. There were only 25 kids there; 13 pitchers and 12 position players. I played first base at the time. There was a scout from each of the 30 major league teams.
It was nerve-wracking, but you got a good understanding of where you stood. I didn’t expect to get drafted and I didn’t. But it put me on the map and helped me get my scholarship to college in Hagerstown, Maryland.
(Andrew Murray at Bluefield College, Virginia, 2008)
At the tryout camp, I asked them what I had to do to promote myself. They told me to make up a profile package, a résumé about all your baseball stuff. I sent it off to 30 or 40 schools in the U.S. in 2003-04. About two weeks later, I got a call from Hagerstown Community College which is where I ended up going. I also got about seven or eight letters from schools in North Carolina and Florida. I chose Hagerstown because it was the most interested in me. I contacted the head coach, Scott Jennings, and within a week I had a letter of intent in the mail.
I played left-field for the Hagerstown Hawks for two years. It was unbelievable just to see where you matched up against other kids, especially in a baseball hotbed like the United States. We played about 55 games a season.
After I got my Associate Arts degree in physical education from Hagerstown, I went on to Bluefield College in Virginia. That was a culture shock; a different baseball league. The conference included teams from Tennessee, North and South Carolina and Georgia.
Playing there, we did a lot of weekend road trips because teams were further away. It would be a five- or six-hour road trip most weekends. You got used to it, but it got old after awhile. You’d miss classes, but you’re still expected to do the school work. They’d tell us to take our school work on the bus and do it, but that’s hard when people are talking and watching movies.
I was at Bluefield for three years. I was the public address announcer for the college men’s and women’s basketball teams. Because I liked doing that, I wanted to do my internship in sports broadcasting. The head guy from ESPN radio came to our school and I gave him my résumé. He called me back and I got an internship at ESPN radio.
I started off operating the audio board, taking calls on the phone-in shows and doing research for the hosts. The first time I was on the radio, I read the opening and closings for major league sports events. I was the guy who said, ‘Thanks for joining us for our coverage of the New England Patriots-Pittsburgh Steelers. We now join the San Diego Chargers-Baltimore Ravens’ game, already in progress’.
Then I started doing high school baseball colour commentary. I loved it. It was everything I expected and more.”
