You couldn’t stump a young Brandon Beam with college football questions. When his parents would try, only to ultimately fail, the question back to young Beam was always the same.
“How do you know all of this?”
There’s a few reasons why, but none bigger than the effect of logging several hours playing the NCAA Football video game. Whether it was playing solo or knocking out an entire season with his buddies on the weekend, the video game created both a knowledge and deep love for the sport that eventually turned into a dream career. To this day, Beam can tell you every single school nickname across the FBS. He has NCAA Football to thank for that.
“My parents thought I was the biggest weirdo because I would mute the TV during elementary school and broadcast the games myself,” laughed Beam. “They’d come downstairs and say, are you talking to yourself again? I said, I’m calling a big game. It’s the National Championship Game.”
Those moments helped spark the dream of becoming a sports radio host, but it wasn’t until his high school years in Dayton when it started to become apparent it was the career he wanted to chase. At first, it was listening to legendary Ohio State play-by-play voice Paul Keels call Buckeye games on the radio and thinking he wanted to do something similar. But it was his involvement at the Centerville High School radio station that really created the bug.
Beam called football and basketball games while at the student radio station. He even had the opportunity to do a sports radio show with his buddies, which probably wasn’t too different from the conversations they would have on the weekends.
“It was pretty awesome and sent me down the path of, ok, this is something I would like to get into,” said Beam. “ It was really eye opening for my future.”
After a year at Western Kentucky University, Beam decided he wanted to be closer to home and around his friends. He transferred to Ohio State and later graduated with a communications degree. Much like his high school days, Beam got involved with the student radio station. With Scarlet and Gray Radio he traveled to see Ohio State play in multiple Big 10 Championship games, a Sugar Bowl win over Alabama and even the national championship win over Oregon. It was a dream come true gig for a lifetime Ohio State fan.
“There were probably about five people listening to the stream of the online radio station and probably all five were parents,” laughed Beam. “But it was a really big deal.”
It was a small taste of what the future was going to hold for Beam. He didn’t know it at the time, but the pinch-me moments would only become more-and-more grandiose as his career progressed. But he also had to earn it.
Beam secured an internship at The Fan in Columbus the summer in-between his junior and senior year of college. Like any internship for a wide-eyed kid, the experiences were both exhilarating and intimidating for Beam. Initially, the duties included fielding a lot of phone calls, handing prizes to callers and the occasional updates during the show. Maybe, just maybe, if a show host was kind enough, Beam would get 15 seconds of air time to give his opinion. But he knew he was in the right place.
During his senior year at Ohio State, Beam was hired at The Fan. His hard work as a young intern had paid off. But after graduation, he had more free time to be at the station. He didn’t take that for granted. In fact, it led to him saying yes to every job imaginable.
“I literally said yes to everything,” said Beam. “There would be nights and weekends where I would be running college hockey on the Ohio State Learfield Network. Friday and Saturday nights during the winter of my senior year of college, my friends are out having a few beers and I’m at the radio station running the board for hockey, baseball and women’s basketball games. A lot of nights, weekends and missed holidays when nobody else wanted to work. I always volunteered.”
That work ethic undoubtedly impressed people at The Fan. For the first few years after college, he found himself producing and being a third voice on several different shows. Perhaps the most influential colleague he had during that time was Tim Hall. Host of The Buckeye Show, Hall became a friend and mentor to Beam.
“I rode with Tim for my first five years at The Fan,” said Beam. “He’s probably the person I’ve talked to most in my life. There were so many hours spent with him.”
Beam was enjoying his life as a co-host of The Buckeye Show at The Fan, but the next pinch-me moment was about to happen. Former GM Todd Markiewicz had watched Beam do everything that was asked of him at a high level. So when the station decided to go to local programming in the mornings, Markiewicz made a decision that even still surprises Beam to this day. He put him as a co-host in morning drive.
“I was like, I don’t know if I’m ready for that. But I’ll take the plunge, here we go.”
The lifelong Buckeye fan was now sitting across from Ohio State legends Bobby Carpenter and Anthony Schlegel on his own show. Beam knew he had a job to do, but it was the biggest pinch-me moment in his career,
“I’m still kind of stunned about it today,” laughed Beam. “The first show that we did I busted out an iconic photo that I had with Schlegel, Carpenter and AJ Hawk. I brought it in for them and said, hey, just want to let you guys know I have been a fan for a long time. It was a pretty surreal thing, especially if you’re from central Ohio you know who Bobby Carpenter is and how unbelievable his career was. People take his word seriously and it was a great opportunity for me.”
Today, Morning Juice at 97.1 The Fan consists of Beam and Carpenter, after Schlegel left to join Urban Meyer with the Jacksonville Jaguars. Beam has settled in nicely to his role and continues to live out a dream. There’s even been a few more pinch-me moments along with the way,
“I’ll never forget the first day Paul Keels actually said my name,” Beam said. “Those golden pipes of his said, ‘hey Brandon good to see you.’ I thought, oh my God, I’m about to faint.”
There’s never a moment Beam takes his position for granted. He gets to talk Buckeye football every single day, as well as everything else going on in Columbus and across Ohio. If it’s not Ohio State, he and Carpenter are most likely talking about the Blue Jackets, Browns or Bengals. But there is a real effort by Beam to be as local as possible with Columbus.
“Buckeye football is a religion here,” said Beam. “We can spend three hours on who the right tackle is going to be this year and people eat it up.”
From the outside, one might wonder what the secret sauce has been at The Fan. The ratings have been incredible, the leadership has been fantastic and the talent has consistently delivered highly entertaining and informative content. Beam credits all those things to the station’s success, but also one thing in particular that’s helped fuel the growth and consistency.
“Everyone is really close,” said Beam. “I get along with and respect everyone here. We have a really good staff behind the scenes and our program director Matt Erhard does a fantastic job. Todd (Markiewicz) did an unbelievable job with community engagement and getting to know people. He made you feel like he was your best friend. I just think everyone is so close and has their own opinion about different things. We kind of offer everything. I don’t think you’ll hear the same opinion, depending on when you flip on the shows. Each show has its own opinions and topics.”
Tyler McComas is a columnist for BSM and a sports radio talk show host in Norman, OK where he hosts afternoon drive for SportsTalk 1400. You can find him on Twitter @Tyler_McComas or you can email him at TylerMcComas08@yahoo.com.
