Student-athletes put in immense amounts of effort both on and off the field. From training, practices and game days, to classes, studying and exams, they are always on the clock. Most often, the only time these students are given the opportunity to speak about their performance is right after their games. Fourth-year digital media production major Michael Ascanio, who plays center field for the SUNY New Paltz Baseball team, wanted to change that.
Ascanio had the idea to start New Paltz Sports Network, a live radio show where he interviews SUNY New Paltz’s athlete of the week, giving them the space off the field to talk about their performance and how they feel about upcoming events.
The show is produced by fourth-year English major Fynn Haughney who hosted a similar show on WFNP last year called “Hawk Hangout.”
“We have athletes getting interviewed when they’re out of breath. They just went through taxing, hour-long games,” Ascanio said. “I thought it would be cool to give spotlights and be able to get in-depth answers not only for their mentalities and team comradery, but to see who these athletes are as people.”
Each week, a poll goes live where fans and students can vote between a selection of student-athletes where the winner is named “Athlete of the Week.” This is where Ascanio gets his interview subjects from.
“I think it’s actually cooler [that I don’t pick] because then I’m not just handpicking different athletes,” he said. “New Paltz students and anyone can actually vote for the Hawk Athlete of the Week. So for followers of the show, they get to choose who comes on to the next week, which I think is a pretty cool thing to do.”
Each show is 30 minutes long and begins with an introduction of that week’s Athlete of the Week followed by going straight into a question and answer segment where Ascanio asks about how they feel about their team that year and some season-specific questions pertaining to their sport.
It can be a daunting ask for some to be featured live on the radio, but Ascanio says that all of his interview subjects have been anything but shy, pointing to two past episodes featuring Rachel Tama of the New Paltz Women’s Field Hockey team and Rachel Eisert, Captain of the New Paltz Women’s Soccer team. He described both as “extremely well-spoken and insightful.”
“Everyone has been great so far. They answer questions perfectly, thoroughly; they go in depth,” Ascanio said. “No one’s been really shy. Sometimes it could be a little scary. You’re going live and you know you can mess up, overthink [or] get nervous. We’ve all been there.”
New Paltz Sports Network airs on New Paltz’s college radio station, WFNP, every Monday night from 7:30 to 8 p.m. Listeners can tune in live at 88.7 FM, on the radio’s website — wfnp.org or the next day on the New Paltz Hawks YouTube channel.
Content from the New Paltz Sports Network show and everything else the Athletic Communications Office creates is also posted to Facebook, X, TikTok and Instagram — all with the tag @newpaltzhawks.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article neglected to mention that New Paltz Sports Network is produced by Fynn Haughney.
