Calling the action for Radio K

Near the end of a row of booths high atop Huntington Bank Stadium, University of Minnesota Twin Cities students are getting a rare opportunity. They’re broadcasting Golden Gophers football games for Radio K streaming listeners in a suite similar to those being used by the Gophers broadcasting team on KFAN radio and by announcers for the national TV broadcast. 

For this game against Rutgers on Sept. 27, Tim Serb and his crew of three take in the action—and relay it to listeners—through giant windows opening up to an idyllic, sun-splashed autumn day. Serb is the student director of broadcast, an interesting volunteer side hustle for a third-year student at Minnesota Carlson majoring in finance and risk management insurance. 

But for Serb it makes perfect sense. A sports nut from Wisconsin, Serb learned about the nascent Radio K broadcasts from the previous head of broadcasting, who invited him to the booth for the opener last year against North Carolina. 

“With that experience with color commentary, I just got absolutely hooked on doing the broadcast [and] the adrenaline rush that you get,” says Serb, who points to Paul Allen, the legendary and demonstrative radio voice of the Minnesota Vikings, as an inspiration. Last year Serb also called men’s hockey games and found his true passion for broadcasting in men’s basketball—“because that’s the sport that I found easiest to do play-by-play for.” 

A ‘Gopher-centered broadcast’ with a lot of color

In the second quarter of the Rutgers game, Serb and color commentator Lucas Kirchner provided a number of descriptive and clever calls—some addressing the early successes of former Minnesota and now-Rutgers quarterback Athan Kaliakmanis. As Kirchner noted, it’s “a Gopher-centered broadcast.”

“As a Gopher fan, you like to see Kaliakmanis do well… but you hate to see it when he comes back to play you,” says Serb. Then later, after the QB’s fortunes had turned and he threw an interception, Kirchner chimed in: “I think this is the Kaliakmanis that Minnesota fans were used to seeing when he was here.” 

During one break in the action—with the Gophers trailing by two touchdowns in a game they’d go on to win 31-28—the off-the-air banter included this playful assessment:  “We’ve gotta sell the team; that’s it.”

At halftime, on his way to grab a snack with the rest of the media, Kirchner stopped to reflect on this chance to play into his own passions. He’s a senior journalism major who has been doing sports commentary for more than five years—even more if you count him announcing football video games on the TV as a kid. 

“Obviously, it’s not a national broadcast, but it’s something,” Kirchner says. “I take these [Radio K] clips, I put them over the video of those broadcasts, I post them, and I’m like, ‘This is how I would do it if I was in that booth.’”

With this opportunity, he is in the booth.

“There’s only a number of people in history that get to do that at a Division I, Big Ten school in a broadcast booth like this—call a game for their alma mater,” Kirchner says. “It’s just such a special experience.”

See the related, in-depth look at Radio K, the more-than-century-old broadcast station that provides a unique training ground—and social environment—for University of Minnesota students.