Mark Ockerbloom ’85	Sean McAdam ’81

As they cover everything from daily sports contests to World Series and Super Bowls, both credit many aspects of their PC educations—including faculty and fellow alumni— with helping them to excel in their careers today.
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Bitten by the broadcasting bug

Ockerbloom, of Medfield, Mass., recalled walking across the PC campus one day with Rev. Enrico Garzilli, then a professor of English. Ockerbloom was a senior English major in Father Garzilli’s class, where the priest often called on students to read aloud. And he called on Ockerbloom a lot.

“So I asked him, ‘Father, why do you call on me so much?’” Ockerbloom said. “And he said, ‘I enjoy hearing you read. Have you thought of a career to use those skills?’”

Ockerbloom had done just that, having already worked at campus radio station WDOM, a gig that piqued his interest in being on the air. The priest’s query pushed the urge along. He then got a for-credit internship at Channel 10. After he auditioned by reading a sportscast on the set, he walked off in a cloud.

“I remember the sports guy, Joe Rocco, saying, ‘You’re bitten by the bug,’” Ockerbloom laughed.

Rev. Paul Seaver, O.P., professor of theology, got word of Ockerbloom’s interest in broadcasting and set up a meeting for him with John Daly ’78, who has worked as a news anchor and as host of Real TV from 1995-1999, among other roles.

“He told me he’d painted houses to make money, made demo tapes, and drove south until he found a job,” said Ockerbloom, who started his own TV career at WMUR in New Hampshire and has won several awards, including Oklahoma ’s Sportscaster of the Year while working in Oklahoma City. “I was looking for that kind of guidance from a PC grad in the business, and that really stuck with me,” he noted.

PC put down his foundation, Ockerbloom said, even crediting PC’s fabled, and occasionally dreaded, Development of Western Civilization course for shaping him.

“The discipline of it, going five days a week for two years, and being introduced to things like art and history, gave you a well-rounded education even if you went on to other things. It’s a bear of a course, but it gives you a little of everything,” he said.

Now in the big time of covering pro sports, Ockerbloom said he has never lost his passion for sports or his appreciation for being part of the Boston media scene. When the Sox won the World Series in 2004, though, his joy was diminished by the passing of his brother that September. “I just wished he could have been alive to see it,” he said.

In the end, for Ockerbloom, the job he does comes down to basics, the basics stressed at PC.

“What do I do daily?” he said. “I read and write. Those are the things that paid off in the end, those are skills I got at PC and use every day.”

From political science major to sports writer

McAdam spent his first four years out of Providence  College at a Rhode Island radio talk station, WEAN, covering sports. Today, McAdam works not only for the Providence Journal covering the Sox but also does a sports column for ESPN.com, among many other endeavors.

“The job combines two things I love, writing and baseball,” he said. “To be able to combine the two and make a living makes me feel particularly fortunate.”

Without question, the Sox winning the Series in 2004 “was a special experience . . . to watch it unfold, from their comeback against the Yankees in the ALCS to the sweep in St. Louis , is something I’ll never forget.”

McAdam’s career path is all the more interesting considering he was a political science major at PC.

“My intent was to be a political consultant, to help run campaigns and do polling, that sort of thing,” said McAdam, who lives in Tyngsboro, Mass. “My interests changed over four years at PC; not for negative reasons, but when you’re 18 trying to determine what to do the rest of your life, sometimes your focus changes.”

He recalled political science professor Dr. Mark Hyde as a particularly positive influence and credits his liberal arts education at PC with giving him an interesting and valuable academic mosaic from which to draw.

“A good liberal arts college teaches you how to think, how to present and organize your thoughts, how to logically make a case for something,” McAdam said. “All those skills were essential to whatever success I had. I look back at my time at PC very fondly.”