Stephanie Summar
News Reporter

Two months ago, Caleb Burggraaf was pretty sure he was going to get hit by a girl. Not just by one girl, either, but by every member of the women’s rugby team. The fallout began after Burggraaf wrote an opinion article in The Criterion and the players objected. The feud ended in the pages of the Crite without any bloodshed, but that initial moment of panic is why Burggraaf prefers KMSA’s airwaves.
Burggraaf, KMSA’s Sports Director, has never experienced that kind of reaction to anything he’s said on the radio shows he co-hosts, “The Locker Room.” If a team is struggling, Burggraaf and his co-hosts will point it out delicately. Occasionally, his interview questions have annoyed a coach or two, but Burggraaf is intent on keeping his relationships with coaches and athletes healthy for the good of the station.
“It comes down to a level of respect,” Burggraaf said. “I’ve worked really hard to build that level of trust with coaches. It’s taken me a long time to build it.” During his first live interview, Burggraaf accidentally interviewed the wrong coach, but he’s come a long way since then. Coaches continue to grant him interviews before and after games, and allow players to come into the studio to talk about their sports.
Burggraaf has been working to build that trust for nearly three years. When the opportunity to join KMSA’s staff came up, he jumped at the chance. It was an opportunity to realize a dream for him. In that time he’s worked his way from the bottom up, operating the boards, making his way to Assistant Sports Director, and finally winning the coveted position of Director last year. It’s a major step on the way to achieving his goal of a sports casting career, which will continue with the minor league Iowa Cubs this summer.
“There’s no doubt I want to do this for a living. I’ve wanted to do it since I realized I couldn’t play sports professionally, so I was 10 or 11. I wasn’t good enough to play, but I still wanted to be a part of that. I went to a Rockies game in the early 2000s and I met [Rockies broadcaster] Jack Corrigan. I didn’t talk to him or anything, I just shook his hand. Then my dad explained who he was and I immediately wanted to be a part of that industry,” Burggraaf said.
Dream jobs can come with nightmares, though. Sometimes it’s tough to be the boss.
“The biggest challenge is coordinating the staff — making sure everyone’s at every game and that everyone knows what they’re doing. I see (their) screw ups as a personal failure. Performance is a reflection of how you’re taught.”
Then there’s the hours of prep work that goes into each show or play-by-play during games. Burggraaf works 10 to 20 hours each week, sometimes more depending on how many games the station covers. Mesa State has a lot of teams, but there are really only four playing at any given time. Burggraaf’s staff covers two or three games a week. He has to create a schedule that balances both the teams’ schedules and the station’s needs.
“The Locker Room” requires about an hour of prep time to research stats, players, and interesting facts about the team. Burggraaf invites players in for interviews, talks about the week’s games, and tries to mix it up. He recognizes that sports shows can be a little limited.
“Sports shows can get repetitive: there are only so many sports on campus, and with a two hour show, it gets hard not to repeat what you said last week,” Burggraaf said. But the redundancy doesn’t worry him, nor does it detract from his dream.
“My first year, all I did was operate the boards. It’s really cool controlling what’s on the air… I was already hooked, but that’s what made me realize this is what I want to do. It’s like I tell my guys. ‘If you can’t find a way to make the boring stuff fun, you’re not going to have fun when you’re doing the exciting stuff, so you should get out now’.
His main show, “The Locker Room”, is broadcast Wednesdays from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. on KMSA at 91.3 FM.

ssummar@mesastate.edu