Cool Cat: Ryan Gildersleeve

Interview by Brian Valencia 

When confident speaking and love for sports clash, you get Ryan Gildersleeve. Ryan is not just a sports fan, but experience in sports broadcasting. 

Ryan currently works as a broadcasting coordinator for the Wildcat Sports Radio Network (WSRN). 

Where are you from?

I am originally from Leavenworth, Washington and I went to high school in the Lake Champlain Valley.

What are your favorite sports? And do you have a preferred sport?

I grew up playing a lot of baseball. In terms of sports that I like to announce for? Basketball is the one that I have the most experience with. So that's probably one of my favorites there.

Do you have any favorite teams that you follow?

I'm a big Sacramento Kings fan. Huge Mariners fan; diehard members’ fan. As far as football goes, I kind of like just the league, you know, but the Seahawks are up there.

What were your favorite players growing up? And do you have any favorite players now?

Oh, yeah. Growing up, Kyle Seager was a big one for the mariners. I really liked him. In terms of Seahawks, I can't really think of any, but I got a ton of mariners. Felix Hernandez, I really liked Hisashi Iwakuma. 

Was there a time growing up that defined your love for sports? 

Oh, yeah. I mean, I've just always been a big baseball guy. My whole life, I've been playing ball. Probably since I was about five or so somewhere in that range. My dad was really big into it. He played a lot of baseball when he was in school, so he encouraged me a lot to go and play. Really how I fell in love with it was playing video games or baseball video games, but I got so annoyed that the commentators were just so annoying. So, I turned them off, and I just did it myself. That kind of just blossomed into a love for sports broadcasting. And then moving forward, I just I continued on with baseball in high school. I had a 16 strikeout no hitter against Tonasket. And that's about where I peaked.

Where do you see your career taking off after you graduate?

Well, coming out of school, I have about nine years of experience in the field. So, I'm hoping that I'll have a bit of a jumpstart. So honestly, you know, wherever seems like a good fit and wherever seems like it's going to have a path ahead of me. Wherever across the country it may be that's where I'll be going.

What started your journey of sports broadcasting before you came to Central?

My high school that I went to was Manson High School. They had an internship program that was required for freshmen and sophomores. When I was a freshman, I went in and I did my internship with a sub shop that was in town because all I was focused on was getting free food. But then I met this guy named Jeff Conwell who owned the place, and we were having a conversation one day when it was slow about what we wanted to do, really. I told him about how I wanted to be a sports broadcaster. It's funny, I still have the voicemail on my phone. He called me later that day and he he says, Ryan, I hold the keys to your broadcast future in my hands, give me a call back. And it was funny because I was just thinking like, this guy is an old bum, right? Nothing that he's saying here is really going to correlate, but it did. And he was absolutely right. And I still have that voicemail on my phone. So it's kind of cool. But he gave me a job. I started off doing board operations, so, I'll have like the technical stuff for broadcasts. And then I that blossomed into me doing production for a bunch of morning shows, and then eventually moving on to sports broadcasts. And that's where I'm at now.

Were there any other programs that you've taken part of that have helped you become the broadcaster that you are today?

Well, the biggest one, definitely, like I said before, it's the Manson internship program. I mean, without that, I would not be where I am today, I be quite a few steps back. So, I'm definitely thankful to all that they've done for me and all that they've done for so many people that I went to school with just helping people get a foot in the door of where it is. Interestingly enough, I talked about how about how it was kind of my entrance to the field with that. But not only that, but the next year, they allowed me to use my internship time, they allowed me to use my internship time to go to cozy the radio station that I was working at, because I had already secured the spot by then. And so, they allowed me to go back for my internship time, work with the radio station to further build my skills while I had time to be there. And so I feel like that also really helped with building my skills. Alongside that I was able to shadow a lot of really great broadcasters, a man that I shadowed quite a few times. His name was Joel Norman, and he did some work for the AppleSox and with the radio station that I worked for, and he was a great guy. He you know, he was always nice to me, and he was a real professional. He went to school for it, and he was the first guy that I had actually met in the field that went to school for it. And while I was working with him, I shadowed him a couple of times and he got a job to work for the Pittsburgh Pirates doing minor league announcing. That just kind of set it off in my mind that if I'm going to pursue sports broadcasting that school was the best way to do that. And then Central Washington kind of came to mind.

You’ve talked a little bit about your role models and people that you shadowed. You talked about, Joel, you've talked about your dad, is there anyone else that you accredit for being who you are as a broadcaster?

Oh, it's tough, because it's been years upon years of like media that I've kind of mocked, and then it's turned into a part of how I speak. I think that a big part of it is, I like to be very high energy, especially when I'm broadcasting and I feel like that has kind of been molded by someone like Dave Sims, or even honestly, if you really want to get to like the roots of Dave Newhouse is a big one. Mike Green is a big one when it comes to my basketball. A lot of guys who have been in the field and who have established themselves as you know, top tier, I just, I've pulled a lot of pieces from everywhere, you know, and it's, it's definitely done its part.