Sports Announcer
I began work with WXEF Sports in 2010, performing fill-in duty for basketball and baseball broadcasts. In 2011, I also took over as statistician/color commentator for Effingham High School football broadcasts. My background in Effingham-area sports dates further back, however, as I covered sports at the Effingham Daily News from 2005 until 2010 under the ever-so-wise tutelage of Millie Lange … with quite a bit of input from the legendary Sam Rickelman mixed in as well.
Since May 2010, my full-time gig is at Eastern Illinois University. I was hired as a writer/copy editor for the newly created Web Office, but quickly learned the ways of the Web and was able to reclassify myself as a web specialist. EIU is also my alma mater; I earned my bachelor’s degree in journalism in 2006. I graduated from Neoga High School in 2002.
My wife, Danielle, and I currently reside in Neoga. We’re avid Atlanta Braves fans — the Chipper Jones shirt Dani wore the first day I laid eyes on her gave me the necessary courage to speak to her. Four years later, we were married on Aug. 8, 2009, on the baseball diamond at Evergreen Hollow Park where we met.
Our daughter, Mackenzie, was born March 19, 2012, and our son, Derek, was born on March 29, 2017. We’ve made sports fans out of them and they love to play as well; if we’re not at a ball field on a summer night, it must be raining! Mack has grown fond of tagging along with me to games I’m covering, although the life of a junior high kid who signs up for *all* the sports and activities doesn’t always allow for it. We also have beagles named Ronnie and Ozzie (after our two favorite Atlanta Braves, Ronald Acuña, Jr. and Ozzie Albies) as well as Kit, a tortoiseshell cat.
Dani and Mackenzie visit the broadcast booth at Klosterman Field during EHS vs. Mt. Zion game in 2012.
Mackenzie holds her baby brother, Derek, a few hours after he was born on March 29, 2017.