By William Britt

Collegiate Sports Broadcasting logo. Image credit: Collegiate School.

A commitment by the Collegiate athletic department and rebirth of the Sports Broadcasting Club has sparked Collegiate’s expansion in sports media and broadcasting this school year. Before this school year started, Collegiate hired Bill Ruhl to be their Sports Communication Manager and birthed the Sports Broadcasting Club, which is headed by Tyler Stepanian (‘23). 

Ruhl came to Collegiate all the way from Florida, where he previously worked at Pine Crest School, a private school in Fort Lauderdale and Boca Raton. There, Ruhl started as a middle school lacrosse coach. Later, he saw a need at Pine Crest to help their sports media, and he began helping give more exposure on social media for Pine Crest’s athletics, later becoming their full-time sports media manager. 

Upon Ruhl’s arrival at Collegiate, the athletic department laid out three main goals for this school year when it came to broadcasting and media: first, start an Instagram page; second, stream every home varsity game; and third, stream a game with live broadcasters on air. Ruhl explained that “We were able to accomplish all three before Christmas break, so all we can do is go up.”

These new additions to Collegiate’s media outreach have been long overdue. Many local private schools, like St. Christopher’s and Trinity Episcopal, implemented live on-air commentators several years ago. St. Christopher’s has their STC.TV, and Trinity has their TESPN. All of these schools, however, were following in the footsteps of Woodberry Forest School, which began WFSPN back in 2015. As a boarding school, they were the first Prep League school to begin broadcasting. Over the years, Woodberry has become the model for high school sports broadcasting in Virginia, with an extremely professional production and equally professional sounding commentators, who even dress the part. 

Stepanian was the sole remaining member from the Sports Discussion Club which he was a part of his freshman year. The club was then disbanded during the 2020-2021 school year because of COVID-19. This past spring, Stepanian approached Upper School economics and government teacher Rob Wedge about bringing the club back and having himself as the president. Wedge told Stepanian about Ruhl, and Stepanian then reached out to Ruhl. The two, along with new Assistant Athletic Director Bart Farenholt, began to make a plan. They launched Collegiate Sports Broadcasting (CSB), during the start of the school year in order to get the word out and gather interest from students. The club received great interest at the Clubs Fair, and their first goal was simple: live broadcast the first home varsity basketball game, with on-air commentators.

The CSB team broadcasting at a varsity basketball game. Photo credit: Vlastik Svab.

Stepanian and Ruhl spent fall club meetings trying to assemble a crew to complete an entirely student-run broadcast. This includes a producer and at least one, if not two, on-air broadcasters. Ruhl knew the product that he wanted to produce: “[I wanted to] instill in them a level of professionalism.” Ruhl attended The University of Miami and studied broadcast journalism and worked for their campus radio station doing play-by-play for basketball, baseball, and football. He explained to me that “the key for a play-by-play guy is to add something to the broadcast. Describe the game without being redundant.” Several students worked to progress their skills throughout the fall, and Blake Ingold (‘25) and Dylan Callaghan (‘26) took the lead. They practiced during scrimmages of basketball games, recording themselves while not on air, and reviewed these practice runs with Ruhl and Farenholt. Finally, the opportunity came at the varsity boys third home game of the year against Banner Christian School on December 16, 2022. Ingold said, “It’s been a lot of fun, and we are really excited for some additions that we are going to make to the broadcast.”

Knocking down a three point jump shot against Banner Christian School. Photo credit: Collegiate School.

When asked about plans moving forward for broadcasting, Ruhl replied, “As long as there is interest, we will be able to accommodate it.” Every home varsity boys basketball game from now on will have live broadcasters, and the varsity girls game against St. Anne’s Belfield School on Friday, Jan. 20 was the first girls game with live broadcasters. The implementation of broadcasters to basketball games has been a great success, and as spring sports are quickly approaching, Ruhl and the CSB hope to be able to implement broadcasters into as many spring games as possible.