Bellisario College of Communications

Alumnus, student get national broadcast opportunity

Two Penn Staters, a recent graduate and a senior in the College of Communications, will be broadcasting the PIAA Team Wrestling Championships for an outlet with national reach Feb. 5-7 from the Giant Center in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

Willie Jungels, who graduated in 2014 with a degree in journalism, and Mike Esse, a journalism major on track to graduate in May, will provide coverage for the NFHS Network, which regularly provides coverage of 27 different high school sports from all across the United States.

“I'm really excited to broadcast this event,” said Jungels. “Pennsylvania has some really great wrestlers and with so many teams, the action will be nonstop, which will be very exciting.”

Jungels is currently an associate producer at Comcast SportsNet in Philadelphia. As a student, he gained an abundance of hands-on experience working for the student-produced “Centre County Report” weekly news program and ComRadio, the online radio station housed in the College of Communications.

Similarly, Esse serves as a leader for “CCR” and as the student general manager for ComRadio. He has compiled hundreds of hours of on-air experience as a Penn State student.

Their coverage on the NFHS Network (www.nfhsnetwork.com) will be live from 2 to 10 p.m. Thursday, 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday -- a total of 28 hours of live coverage over three days.

Jungels and Esse will be monitoring all of the mats and keeping fans up to date on what is happening during the team championships. There will be numerous cameras set up around the arena, making it easy to jump from match to match.

“It’s kind of cool because Willie and I were both sports directors with ComRadio and did many games together during college,” said Esse. “So, it will be a fun little reunion.”

 

Credit: NFHSAll Rights Reserved.

Last Updated June 2, 2021