Nate Gatter considered calling it a ‘career.’ After calling hundreds and hundreds of minor league baseball games and lower-level college football and basketball games plus freelancing for the likes of ESPN and the Big Ten Network, Gatter was unsure if his career would take the next step. He was so concerned about it, that in August 2022 he enrolled in law school at Washington University in his hometown of St. Louis. As for what has happened since then, let’s just say that when he finishes law school in May 2025, he will have some decisions to make.
It turns out, Gatter’s agent, Dean Grossman, had sent a recording of him calling the NAIA National Championship basketball game in Kansas City to then-Westwood One Executive Producer Howard Deneroff earlier this year. It also turns out, Westwood One was looking for someone to call a few conference championship games and the First Four of the NCAA Tournament in March. And they needed someone fairly quickly.
“It happened kind of fast,” Gatter said about getting hired for the handful of games. “But it was great timing for me and sort of a lifelong career goal if you’re somebody who grows up loving broadcasting and caring about it. Everybody knows Westwood One is as good as it gets for radio play-by-play. It has been for a long, long time. And it was one of the real honors of my career and one of the most exciting moments of my career for sure to this point.”
“I believe Nate is a rising star in sports broadcasting and we are thrilled to have him calling our college football package this season,” Vice President, Executive Producer for Westwood One Mike Eaby told BSM. “Nate has the ability to connect with listeners with the perfect blend of informative, descriptive and conversational. The way he handled the First Four this past March proves how comfortable he is in the broadcast booth, doing four games on very short notice on that stage is no easy task. Pairing him with Derek Rackley and our tremendous slate of college football games will be a treat for our listeners.”
Gatter, who turned 28 in May, said that while the feedback he received was both positive and constructive, he was mostly excited that there was actual feedback. He said it can be frustrating working in lower levels of broadcasting and not really getting much in the way of feedback. Then, working for larger television outlets, those executives don’t have the time. Gatter did not find that to be the case at Westwood One.
“That’s the best part about Westwood One for me, is the level of feedback that you get, the detail,” he said.”
Gatter mentioned a game where Eaby was driving to a game his crew was working in Pittsburgh. Gatter was on the air calling a game and Eaby heard most of the broadcast.
“He was on his way to produce his own games, right? Like he has his own stuff to do…So I’m not even having to send him tape to get feedback. I’m hearing from him almost immediately that night. And that’s been a real pleasure of it because, to me, if you’re somebody in my position, you want to be coached, same as a player. You want to get that feedback, reinforce positives, and improve negatives. And that’s really hard to do if you’re not getting that direction from the people who command what the brand is going to be about.”
Gatter, a University of Missouri graduate, said the significance of calling games for Westwood One really hit him when he was told to have a sentence or two at the end of each broadcast that captures the significance of the game. He said it really started to sink in that when you have an assignment like calling a national radio broadcast of an NCAA Tournament game, you are in fact the audio recording of record.
“You need to be conscious of the fact that big things that happen in the game are going to be stored and potentially replayed. One of the things Westwood One is really committed to that I think is cool are those great moments in tournament history and stuff like that where it’s sort of a repository of the incredible history of the NCAA tournament because Westwood One is sewn into the very fabric of at least the tournament’s modern era.”
Gatter enjoyed working for Westwood One so much he made sure his agent let them know this summer, if there was an opportunity for a regular workload, he would not wait to see if anything else came up, he wanted to commit to Westwood One.
In Gatter’s words, “Luckily, they were prepared to commit to me as well.”
Gatter will be the lead college football broadcaster starting this fall. He has around 15 games on his schedule. He will also do some college basketball and will work some NFL games.
“Honestly, I’m just really thrilled,” Gatter said. He also mentioned how excited he is to work more closely with Mike Eaby saying, “We had a couple of great conversations over the summer, and he is the exact kind of guy that you want to work for in that he has a lot of experience and a lot of expertise. And so, you can trust his judgment, but he’s also not somebody who just dictates from down on high. He was very forthright with me about where we were at in the whole process at every step and what they saw as my role and what they envisioned going forward.”
Gatter will be able to lean on his college football partner Derek Rackley, who has been part of Westwood One’s NCAA Football coverage since 2012.
“One of the things I’m most excited about is not only working with the same analyst every week, which is a big deal because it allows you to develop chemistry and understanding with one another, but also to work with one of his caliber is just a joy…I’m not sure anybody in the country calling college NFL games anywhere is better at it than ‘Rack.’
Gatter is also very excited that he knows his schedule in advance. “For me, this is the luxury of having this many games on the schedule that are all set, and I don’t have to think about it. I can just focus on doing the games.”
When asked to name some broadcasters he models his style after, Gatter said, nationally, Adam Amin and John Sadak are two people he really enjoyed listening to along with Saint Louis University play-by-play broadcaster and St. Louis sports talk radio veteran Bob Ramsey.
“Over time, you kind of start to branch out and change things and add more of yourself as you get more comfortable,” he said. “But for me, the place that always makes sense for young broadcasters is to start by copying.
In 2017 Gatter won the Jim Nantz Award from the Sportscasters Talent Agency of America. The award is given to the nation’s most outstanding collegiate sports broadcaster. He was a junior in college and 20 years old and thought his career was on the fast track.
“I never even called games in affiliated minor league baseball,” he said. “I don’t know how many of those jobs I applied for and didn’t get, probably 50, if not more. So, my career in my early 20s really did not go the way that I thought it was going to go, which I imagine is true for a lot of people in this business and others. So, I became much more oriented around broad goals, and I started saying and have said for a number of years that I want two things. I want to do games that people care about, and I want to make a decent living doing it.”
“And I feel like I’m just about in that position now.”
