I’ve interviewed Jeff Byers at least 10 times over the last decade, mostly to capture insights into the powerhouse Penn State wrestling program. Byers, the team’s broadcaster since 1990, is the ultimate expert on the Nittany Lion dynasty.
But until recently, I had never seen Byers randomly; never run into him downtown or on campus. Then, two weeks ago I saw him at Del Grosso’s Amusement Park with his wife and son. And just a couple days after that, I entered the gate at Welch Pool and again ran into “Ironhead.”
Stunned a bit by the dual coincidences, I said, “Is there something we’re supposed to talk about?” Yes,” said Byers with a grin, there was something. And that’s when I first heard about a new local radio station that my friend would help to launch. A sports radio station.
I could hardly restrain my delight, having complained, moaned, whined and fussed since January about our area’s lack of radio sports. Suddenly, Byers was proclaiming good news—“98.7 The Fox” would fill the region’s black hole with a combination of national Fox Sports programming (including Lavar Arrington’s “Two Pros and a Cup of Joe”) and local content. Byers would be on air for a variety of programs like “The Goon and Ironhead Show,” “Ironhead on Sports,” and “Let’s Talk”—a discussion of Centre County news being co-hosted by longtime broadcaster Scott Geesey.
Feeling doggone happy before I even hit the pool, I scheduled a time to talk further with Byers. The following is an edited portion of our discussion about the radio station that has since been born.
I’ve sensed that you are extremely excited about this new station, “98.7 The Fox,” but maybe you could share the specifics…
Byers: I am thrilled to be a part of this, but I am just as excited that sports talk radio will be back in the area. It’s a big bonus for me that I’m involved, but I think this area needs to have sports talk and I think the news talk component makes it all the better. For me, radio should be local and I grew up listening to Wendy and Kevin and absolutely loved their show and loved what they did with the football tailgates. (Wendy Williams and Kevin Nelson co-hosted the “Wendy and Kevin Show” on WRSC 1390 AM for nearly two decades.) And it just always sounded like they were having so much fun.
Having no local sports coverage for the better part of a year felt very sad and very strange to me. How did it seem to you?
Byers: It was just strange. On the surface it made no sense for an area that is as passionate about sports. When you think about the history of athletics in this area and the impact of County League baseball, Penn State football, the traditions of Penn State gymnastics and Bellefonte baseball, it’s just a remarkable history. Sports is an important part of Centre County. And It’s one of those things that does bring people together. It doesn’t matter what your political ideology is or your notions on this or that. Hey, we’re all coming together to pull for Penns Valley to win a softball championship or for Bald Eagle Area baseball and softball teams to finish on top.
And listen, sports also provide an opportunity for everybody to have different opinions— “This guy’s above average, this guy’s fantastic, this guy doesn’t know what he is doing.” What are you talking about? He absolutely knows what he’s doing. “You’re not gonna get anybody better.”
And that’s part of the fun. But I also think you see in sports a lot of the issues that are important to society. And I think sports gives you an opportunity to figure out what is right or needs to be changed to make society in general a little better.
As a sports journalist, you must be over the moon as you look ahead to exploring issues like NIL, conference realignment and transgenderism in sports–and those are just a couple of topics off the top of my head.
Byers: There’s all of that. And then there’s also issues at the youth level. How early is too early to be dialed in on one sport for a young athlete? Or is there such a thing as being too early to dial in on one sport? How about youth coaches? What’s the approach there? There’s a ton of topics and we’re open to discussing them. I don’t know that there are rights or wrongs in any of this, but it’s certainly a changing landscape. So I think we’ll be tapping into the thought processes that are going on here in Centre County. And hopefully, we can help guide some conversations toward actual solutions.
What will be the most interesting program for your listeners?
Byers: We’re gonna do some innovative stuff, some different things and see what sticks. One of the things we’re gonna do is “Centre County Red Zone.” On Friday nights, instead of doing play-by-play of any one game, we’ll have reporters at each Centre County-related game and we’ll have a studio host. So we’ll bounce around between all of those games and try to pick up on the important action with all of the county teams.
Will you cover five schools? Six schools?
Byers: Five for football—Bald Eagle Area, Bellefonte, Penns Valley, Philpsburg-Osceola and State College. And then for winter and spring sports, it will be six with St. Joseph’s, and we’ll be doing traditional play-by-play for boys and girls basketball, wrestling, baseball and softball. Our goal is to make sure we have each of the county programs on air at least twice and if a certain team is having a great year we will carry more of those games.
Will you be the host for Centre County Red Zone?
Byers: I’ll be the host for five of the fall weekends, but on the other Friday nights I’ll be doing the P.A. announcing for State High home football games. So for those games, Mark Snyder, who did State High games on the radio for a number of years, will be the studio host.
So how would you describe this new show?
Byers: We’ll have constant phone calls going back and forth between the reporters and the studio. And if Penns Valley just got a big play and it’s first and goal, the reporter will text us and we’ll get to them as quick as we can. We want it to be informative, but also conversational.
What we don’t want is to have a report that says, “It’s first quarter with two minutes and it’s seven to nothing with Bald Eagle Area leading Bellefonte. Joey Jones just scored a touchdown. Back to you.” We don’t want that. We want that information, but we also want some fun interaction with fans. And we want the atmosphere of the game, like, “This guy in front of me is eating a hot dog and wow, it smells so good. I’m gonna see how many hot dogs I can eat tonight.” If there’s a game that’s out of hand, we’ll start checking into that game less frequently, and if there’s a couple of games that are really compelling we’ll be focusing on them as they go down to the wire.
So you’ll be on the air for a variety of shows and even doing some advertising sales?
Byers: Yeah, I’m doing some selling, which is a little out of my comfort zone. But I’m selling stuff that I believe in, so it’s an easy sell. I believe in what we’re doing as a radio station, and I’m almost exclusively going after businesses that I know and like. So I know the value that they bring to the community.
I’d like to hear about your news talk show.
Byers: The show is called “Let’s Talk” and it will air weekdays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. My co-host, Scott Geesey, had a bit of an itch to get back into radio, so he reached out to me in the spring. We were exploring opportunities and then this opportunity came up with 98.7 The Fox.
How would you describe the style and content of the show?
Byers: It will be local-focused on Centre County issues and topics, but we’ll certainly delve into some national issues. Scott and I are hoping for a conversational show, and we truly want varying opinions. We’ll be encouraging our listeners to not just call up and complain. We’ll be asking them to offer solutions or we’ll try to put our heads together. I’m sure that one of the first things we’ll be talking about is the whole eminent domain thing in State College (Borough Council voted to acquire the building at the corner of East Beaver Avenue and McAllister Alley to build a parking garage where three businesses have resided). I’m as frustrated about it as I think most people are, but I don’t want to leave it as “Hey, Borough Council is dumb. That shouldn’t have been done.” Well, what should they have done? What could be done moving forward to make this more advantageous for everybody? So that’s our hope, that it’s a conversational opportunity to kick around the problems in our area and what we can do to go about fixing them.
But you won’t deal exclusively with local topics?
Byers: To some degree it’ll be what our listeners lead us to. But we very much want it to be a Centre County sounding board that’s focused on Centre County issues. Now, will presidential politics work their way in? Undoubtedly. What about the fire in Hawaii? That’s something that a lot of people are talking about. So this is not gonna be a situation where if you’re not talking about Centre County just get off the phone. But yes, our focus is gonna be on Centre County and things that impact folks here.
Do you and Scott occupy the same spot on the political wavelength?
Byers: I think he’s probably a little more moderate than me. I am certainly very conservative in my beliefs. But again, we’re both hoping to make this a place where anybody and everybody feels welcome to express their views without somebody jumping down their throat. The hope is that this will be a place where we can really talk things through and maybe find common ground in areas where people wouldn’t initially think they have much common ground. And if not, it’s part of life that you’ve got to live with people who see things very differently than you and you’ve got to figure out how to get along.
How hard will it be for this new station to succeed financially? Byers:
I think we’re gonna find that out. I think with the economy the way it is, it’s tough to get people to see the upside of parting with their dollars for advertising. But part of the vision for the station is to make the community a better place by giving people an opportunity to express themselves and to hear different opinions. Because our goal really is to be part of the community and because we’re trying to give advertisers a good bang for their buck, we’re optimistic. With the lineup of Fox national shows that we have and the local content, I think it’ll be pretty easy for them to see the value.
