By Joseph Frescott, Sports Editor
Not many people can say that they have spent five years at one university. Even fewer can say they did so as just an undergraduate student.
Andrew Scarpaci began his time at Long Island University (LIU) well before he enrolled as a student. It all started in the summer prior to his senior year of high school, when the Hicksville native made a decision that would change his life forever.
With the pressure of picking a college around the corner, Scarpaci attended the Summer Honors Institute at LIU, a free week-long program in which high school students are invited to choose and study a topic of interest.
A seemingly minor decision, Scarpaci chose journalism, as he had written columns for his high school newspaper that year.
Little did he know, this decision in 2018 would change his life forever.
“We had one day in the radio station where I met the legendary Dan Cox a month after my 17th birthday. I asked him if they covered school sports and I signed up to intern. I had no idea what to expect. I said I was interested in calling football games for the upcoming fall. I didn’t hear anything back for a while, until the day of the first meeting,” he said. “There were three guys in a room and that was the first sports department meeting I’ve ever been to, the first of very many. I interned for the WCWP Sports Department that year and I went on air for the very first time during the first basketball game I ever worked… I knew I wanted to go to LIU. They gave me one of the best scholarships and it didn’t feel like a transition coming here because I already had a friend group, I already had an extracurricular, and I was a tenured member of the radio station… From the very beginning here, I took a leadership role in wanting to get myself involved, and that’s how it all started.”
Scarpaci committed and enrolled as a sports management major the ensuing fall, continuing to work for the radio station. He also began writing for the student newspaper, The Pioneer.
His first year at Post “could not have come at a better time,” as LIU underwent a transitional period in 2019. Ditching the green and yellow Pioneers colors that had become a staple of everything LIU for nearly six decades, LIU rebranded to become the Sharks, dawning the baby blue and gold colors that are draped throughout the campus today.
This transition led to a big change in the athletics at LIU as well, with the Brooklyn and Post campuses combining their sports programs and announcing the move to Division 1 in all sports.
This worked out well for Scarpaci, as he was able to see the change firsthand and cover the new programs for both the newspaper and radio station.
It wasn’t long before he was thrust into a leadership role, as after just one year of writing for The Pioneer, Scarpaci was named sports editor, a position he has held since. In his time writing for the student newspaper, he has written over sixty stories and was at the forefront of the transition from The Pioneer to The Tide.
With all of this working in his favor, it didn’t come without a few bumps along the way.
“My dream was always to call a baseball game. Since I was 15 years old, I’ve always wanted to call a baseball game and I was supposed to do the opening day baseball game my freshman year. It was supposed to be a Friday game, but they called for rain on Friday. So the game was moved to Thursday. I had a midterm that Thursday, so I couldn’t do the game and that Saturday and Sunday I was working,” he said. “I was supposed to do the game the following week, and that was when the season got shut down due to COVID. So I had to wait to my sophomore year to do my first baseball game, and it was well worth the wait. I’ve been the voice of LIU baseball on NEC Front Row for the last two years… My time as the voice of LIU baseball is probably always going to be most memorable for me because that’s what I’ve always wanted.”
Scarpaci has continued to work sports broadcasts for LIU Sports Radio and NEC Front Row, calling games for an array of sports at LIU. After working for three years in WCWP’s sports department, Scarpaci was named the sports director his junior year, a role he vied for since his time as an intern.
The sports management major credits former Director of WCWP Dan Cox, who helped him develop both personally and professionally during his time at Post. Cox, who retired this past year, has since been replaced by Peter Belloti Jr., a former sports director of WCWP and member of the 2007 graduating class. Like Cox, Bellotti Jr. has undertaken a mentorship role for Scarpaci.
“Two months after meeting Pete [Bellotti Jr.], I was able to develop enough of a rapport with him here to get a job at CBS Sports Radio, where he produces. I’ve been cutting tape for the producers and anchors for the one of the biggest national sports radio stations in the country for a couple of months now. You cannot get any better than that. Audacy is one of the biggest radio companies in the country, and I’m doing tape for one of their biggest sports stations. I didn’t expect to have that before I graduated,” Scarpaci said. “I also work for BSE Global, which is the company that owns the Brooklyn Nets, the Long Island Nets and the [New York] Liberty. I was working game nights for the G League team. That’s an experience I’ll take forever because that was my first job in professional sports and I’m hoping I can stay with that company too.”
Scarpaci currently works part-time as a game night attendant for BSE Global for Long Island Nets games, as well as a tape operator for CBS Sports Radio and WFAN. But his aspirations for the future don’t stop there.
“I would say my number one dream would be to have my own sports media company, but obviously I have to get myself in the industry first. So obviously keeping my job with CBS, I would love to get a full time on-air role eventually, whether it’s with the WFAN side or the CBS side … Calling games would be the dream, but obviously those full time jobs are few and far between. If I can hypothetically get a writer’s job with either the New York Post, the New York Times, something with that end so I can keep writing stories. If I can keep my job with the Nets, maybe working game nights or doing something in sales for them. If I can do something in college athletics, that would be a great route. But if I can have multiple part time jobs where I’m doing a little bit of everything that I like, that would be the goal right off the bat,” Scarpaci said. “In terms of a big picture, I don’t have any plans necessarily for it yet. But if I had my own sports media company that worked games, had its own network, had its own branding, merchandise and equipment, just kind of a sports company that has every sector of sports all in one. So everything from media to business, everything sports in one company.”
Scarpaci was selected by the faculty of the college of management as the recipient of the academic excellence in sports management award for this year’s graduating sports management class.
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