An Old Face Returns to Campus

UW-Milwaukee’s Journalism, Advertising, and Media Studies LLC students were given insight into a possible media future when Drew Olson, prominent host of a sports talk radio station, talked to the class about his life experience in journalism.

He recalled his trajectory of making his way from being a student in Merrill Hall to finding himself at Yankee Stadium covering major league baseball. Olson is a voting member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, whose career has spanned everything from writing for a daily newspaper to being an editor at an innovative online platform.

Olson, now a senior editor at ESPN Milwaukee, emphasized the importance of the connections students make in college.

According to the LLC website, the concept of the LLC is having “a community within a community” where students live on the same floor in the residence halls and have a common academic interest such as pursuing the same degree. The JAMS LLC is designed to excite students about media careers. Field trips and speakers like Olson are scheduled to add too and create the experience the students receive as a member.

“Drew Olson is a veteran journalist with experience in multiple media platforms, from traditional print to online media to broadcast, so he symbolizes the modern journalist,” said Jessica McBride, instructor of the JAMS’ LLC. “My goal in having speakers like Drew come to class is to excite our freshmen students about media professions. The LLC concept in general is also designed to improve freshmen retention and to create more of a campus atmosphere.”

Olson shared his experience as a JAMS major (otherwise known as Mass Communication when he was an undergraduate). Olson told the students how he went from an “Agate Maggot” to the President of Baseball Writers Association of America and then to hosting a talk radio station. He gave the students tips on the ins and outs of the media world.

“You are going to have to have skills in all traits,” said Olson when he talked about his first job in the news field as an undergrad at UWM. He explained to the students, “You may want to be a sports journalist or a travel journalist, but you have to keep yourself open to other things.”

Olson said he landed in sports journalism almost by accident when he moved from being an “editorial messenger” to writing stories for the sports section. “It could have been business desk next to the messenger area,” Olson said, and if it had been, he might have seized that opportunity instead.
Many sports stories were shared by Olson, however, he also shared how important it is to have connections. He explained that not only did he have connections within his job at the Milwaukee Journal (later Journal Sentinel) but also with his fellow students at UWM. Jon Greenberg, President of the Milwaukee Admirals Hockey Club and former Media Director of the Milwaukee Brewers, is one of those fellow students who helped Olson move up in his career by becoming Olson’s replacement editorial messenger. Olson talked about how they are still friends to this day.

One student in particular was thrilled to hear about Olson’s journalism adventures, saying, “It is exciting to get to hear about his experience from a freshman in college trying to figure out what he wanted to do, to the day he realized how it felt to finally understand that he made it,” said Jordyn Noennig, who is part of the JAMS LLC and hopes to get into political journalism.

She added, “After [Olson] talked to us, and we got to visit his office at ESPN Sports, I feel confident that this is the career path that I want to follow.”

Olson made sure that the students understood that, when working in a media career, there has to be a lot of effort and work put into what you do. He explained that there was a time when he was working on OnMilwaukee.com and hosting ESPN Sports radio that he felt overwhelmed and couldn’t put all his effort into one thing. He then shared with the JAMS LLC advice that none of them will forget, “If you do two jobs half [as hard], you make a complete [idiot] out of yourself.”