KNOXVILLE — Roger Hoover, a junior at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, who has worked as a sports announcer for many UT athletic events, is one of the Top 20 best student broadcasters in America, according the Sportscasters Talent Agency of America (STAA) All-America Program.
Roger HooverThe program recognizes the most outstanding collegiate radio sportscasters in the country and encourages collegiate sportscasters nationwide to strive to achieve their best. Each June, the nation’s most outstanding collegiate sportscaster is presented the Jim Nantz Award.
Hoover ranked eighth on the STAA list.
A graduate of Dobyns-Bennett High School in Kingsport, Tenn., Hoover is in the sports journalism track in the School of Journalism and Electronic Media in the College of Communication and Information. He was the only broadcaster from a Southeastern Conference school on the STAA list.
Hoover began covering the UT football team while working in the Internet Communications office of the UT Men’s and Women’s Athletic Departments in August 2006, before starting classes at UT.
Since then, he’s reported on each UT sport, and has served as a play-by-play announcer for webcasts of women’s soccer and volleyball, in addition to select webcasts of UT baseball. Hoover is also a co-host for “Inside the Orange,” the Vol Network’s spring sports television program.
Last summer, Hoover also was the first full-time broadcaster for the Kingsport Mets, the rookie Appalachian League affiliate of the New York Mets.
In the fall of 2008, Hoover resumed his role as the Internet video reporter for Tennessee athletics, and filled in on three occasions for UT historian Haywood Harris on “Inside the Coach’s Office,” a weekly interview with then-head coach Phillip Fulmer. Hoover covered the final days of the Fulmer era, and the beginning of the Lane Kiffin era for utsports.com.
For the 2009 baseball season, Hoover joins the Class AA Tennessee Smokies for his second season in professional baseball broadcasting. Hoover serves as a broadcast assistant on the Smokies Radio Network, which can be heard on The Sports Animal WNML 99.1 FM, WNML 990 AM in Knoxville, and WNRX 99.3 in Jefferson City.
A devout Chicago Cubs fan, Hoover’s career goal is to be a Major League Baseball play-by-play announcer.
Contact:
Amy Blakely (865-974-5034, amy.blakely@tennessee.edu)