Cohen Gives Students Sports and Career Scoop

By Madison Langweil

Behind the scruffy beard, kind eyes and large smile is one of the most innovative executives in the world of sports communication. Steve Cohen, Senior Vice President of Sports Programming, was sponsored by Marist College’s Career Connections Series on Wednesday, April 7 with moderator Desmond Murray, Associate Director for the Employer Experience at Marist College. Cohen honed in on his three decades of work with Sirius XM, ESPNU Radio, Big 12 and all-sports Mad Dog Sports Radio channel with the various faces of Marist students on the virtual screen.

Cohen took his audience back to the different media platforms he worked for and how he had to take a leap of faith to get where he is today. A simple cup of coffee with Peter King, NFL writer, led to the snowball effect of his aspiring career as a medium for sports.

“I pitched myself for a column and became the first of many to [be a] fantasy football writer for ESPN.com,” he said. “I called every sports editor in the United states to try to sell them a column. I wrote three columns based on the information that I had obtained from the prior seasons.”

Swimming through all the “no’s” from people, he persisted to continue his sports craft that led him to obtaining a small job as a Sunday columnist for the New York Daily News that later caught the attention of The Birmingham News.

Cohen at this point was on a role. He described his work and involvement with Sirius XM as “amazing” and everything that led up to it.

“One of the things that attracted me to Sirius was that I was able to put my stamp on something, my philosophy on the sports talk radio station. And my philosophy at that time was I wanted to do expert radio,” Cohen says. “We kind of grew it from there.”

In his work with Mad Dog Sports Radio channel, Cohen was able to “do sports talk with a bit more edge,” he describes. He wanted people to take the channel seriously through all their talk.

“We will be critical but we will always be fair in our criticisms because if we’re not then we aren’t going to be taken seriously,” Cohen said.

Becoming a pioneer in the fantasy sports industry, he founded the Pro Football News and Injury Report in the early 1990s while also writing for other newspapers including Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Newark Star-Ledger.

“As a sports talk radio producer, it’s all about the here and now. And you have to be reacting the here and now,” Cohen says. “We need to advance the story as producers. And what I mean is to take you as a listener and bring you closer to the story–giving you all the information that is available [and] complete with opinion on the story.”

Highlighted throughout his talk, Cohen expressed that doing the research, building journalism skills and staying connected with others are essential to building a solid foundation for any person that desires to be in any field of communication.

“As students you will see a story written, but it may be slated to the opinion of the writer, so you want to get multiple opinions on the story especially if it’s controversial. In the end we decide what the story is,” Cohen said.

Before his closing remarks, he reminded students that now is the time to better yourself and take that risk that may scare you.

“Male, female, color of your skin–it doesn’t matter. Nothing can hold you back now. Be the best you can be when it comes to the medium you want to be in. This is just such a great time now for everyone to achieve their goals,” he said.