While Mike Golic Jr. was trying to pursue a career in the NFL, he was also preparing for what life would be like after football as a film and television major at Notre Dame. It ended up leading to a good 6.5 years at ESPN.
Golic Jr. was a guest on the Inside The Garage podcast on The Volume and talked about the experience he received at Notre Dame and an interesting internship that he took part in.
“My last year, I did an internship with Notre Dame camps where I was doing content for all of their YouTube pages for the different camps around campus basically for the parents that were sending their kids there,” Golic explained. “You want trial-by-fire where you learn if you want to do this or not? Go interview a bunch of fifth graders who have no idea.”
As Golic Jr.’s professional career continued, he took any opportunities whenever he could, including some spots at ESPN Radio in New York while playing minor league football.
“Along the way, I had kind of been doing stuff as I went because of my dad and how long the morning show had been going, it meant I already knew people that were in some other places,” said Golic. “I’m in Staten Island playing minor league football and I’m going into ESPN Radio’s affiliate on the weekends there because my dad’s old producer is the programming director now and he’s like, let’s get you some reps on-air here. Come and do two hours with one of our hosts out there.”
After his football career was over, Golic Jr. went to ESPN looking for any opportunity to get his foot in the door. That opportunity ended up being something unfamiliar to him, a 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. ET fantasy football show on Sundays.
“I went to my dad, went to the people I knew at ESPN and was like, do you guys have anything that I can do here? I don’t care what it is. I’m just looking to get my foot in the door,” said Golic.
“For me, it ended up being a Sunday morning fantasy football radio show, The Fantasy Focus. They asked me if I was into fantasy football. I lied and told them yes. I had not played fantasy football a day in my life. I’ll get every magazine, I’ll learn as I go along, and I’ll figure it out on the fly. I got lucky because my connection happened to be a blood relative, but it was taking that first opportunity and making sure I did well enough with it to try and beget other opportunities. Stuff just started to snowball from there.”
While at Notre Dame, Golic Jr. had the opportunity to talk to other Notre Dame people in sports media and he tries now to provide the same opportunities to students, even if they are not football players.
“One of the best things I can say about Coach Kelly and his tenure is Notre Dame football has come leaps and bounds in putting current players in front of alumni to do some of those things. We didn’t do as much of that when I was in college,” Golic said.
“I knew Notre Dame guys who were in sports media, but I was fortunate. I think now it’s in a place where I know for me even if it’s not football players, I’ve had Notre Dame students reach out to me that I’ve been able to put in touch with certain people to try and help them out to be someone who will watch a reel and give them feedback.”
Golic mentioned that he has his next gig lined up, but isn’t ready to announce it yet.
