By JP Pelzman
As a coordinating producer for FOX Sports, Seton Hall alumnus Bardia Shah-Rais has worked and hung out with the iconic Bill Raftery many times.
And as Shah-Rais said in an interview with PirateCrew.com, Raftery “is as advertised.”
Case in point: Shah-Rais said that once he was scheduled to go out to dinner with the former Seton Hall coach and some other people at a restaurant where you supply your own wine. But those other people cancelled, leaving only Raftery and Shah-Rais.
Raftery brought two bottles, which puzzled Shah-Rais.
Raftery then said, “I know you went to Seton Hall, but what are you, an idiot? One’s for you and one’s for me.”
“That’s Raf for you,” Shah-Rais said, his smile coming across loud and clear across the phone lines.
Raf’s opinion notwithstanding, that Seton Hall education has helped Shah-Rais, a December 1995 graduate, get to where he is now. He was named a “Power Player” in the media by Sports Business Journal last year.
Shah-Rais, who grew up in Irvine California, says he always wanted to be in sports media, and thought SHU was a good place to begin that journey.
“This was always something I wanted to do,” he said, “and I felt Seton Hall was a great school for that,” noting that during his time as an undergraduate in the 1990s, there often were approximately 15 students to a class, giving them more of an opportunity for hands-on, personal instruction than at some bigger universities.
Another reason he went to Seton Hall was because of one of his mentors, former ESPN anchor, reporter and essayist, Bob Ley, a 1976 graduate of The Hall.
“Bob Ley was a mentor,” Shah-Rais said. “He’s one of the main reasons I went to Seton Hall. … He’s such a good person, first and foremost. He’s just a kind, kind man. He’s one of those guys that advises you and steers you in a direction without you knowing it. At the end of the day you come up with the decision on your own, but using a lot of his advice. I’m honestly lucky to have him as a good friend.”
Although Shah-Rais enjoyed his time in South Orange, things didn’t always go smoothly. He still laughs at himself about the time he cursed during a WSOU broadcast because he did not know he was on the air at the time.
Shah-Rais, who eventually rose to sports director at WSOU and also wrote for The Setonian, was in Honolulu covering the Pirates at a Thanksgiving week tournament in 1994. Someone at WSOU innocently asked him, “How’s Hawaii?”
Not knowing they were live on the air, “I said how do you think it is, it’s (bleeping) beautiful,” Shah-Rais recalled with a laugh.
Once he realized his mistake, his mind raced with the possible ramifications, such as expulsion from The Hall or, at the very least, dismissal from the station. But nothing of the sort happened.
“Fortunately, nobody was listening on the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving,” he says now with a chuckle.
Shah-Rais’ professional career began as a production assistant at ESPN in 1996 and later took him to the NFL Network in 2005. But when the Big East split in 2013 was accompanied by FOX gaining rights to the reconstituted Big East for its fledgling FoxSports1 network, Shah-Rais found himself with a decision to make.
“I was perfectly happy at NFL Network,” he recalled, but upon finding out FOX would need someone to help run its college basketball studio shows, “that piqued my interest,” he says. “It was a perfect storm.”
As someone told him at the time, doing this job would be a “labor of love.”
“I didn’t know what he meant then, but now I do,” Shah-Rais said. “It doesn’t seem like work. I’d be watching these games at home anyway.”
Instead, he often gets to interact with Raftery and play-by-play stalwart Gus Johnson, now known to Seton Hall fans for frequently intoning the slogan “What Trenton makes, the world takes” in honor of Pirates’ star Myles Powell, a Trenton native.
Aside from the near-compulsory (and plentiful) late nights spent with Raftery, Shah-Rais is impressed with his continued dedication to his craft.
“He’s such a good and genuine person and he still works so hard at this,” he said of Raftery. “He’s still a grinder and it’s honestly a privilege to work with a legend.”
Shah-Rais noted that Raftery still watches voluminous amounts of tape, not just on the teams he is broadcasting but high-school footage of the freshmen who will be joining those squads. And despite those late nights, he often will be at morning shootarounds on game day, even if he just called a game of that team a few days before.
As for Johnson’s enthusiastic play-by-play style, Shah-Rais said, “He always makes the game feel big. He makes every game feel like the most important thing you could be watching.”
As coordinating producer of studio shows for college basketball and Major League Baseball, Shah-Rais sees his job as being an overseer of the proceedings, even though it is a “collaborative effort,” he said.
“The shows are scripted,” he added, “and we plan on what we want to talk about where and when, but eventually something happens where there’s breaking news or a different discussion on the air than the one we expected. So it’s just about managing that and going along with the flow.”
Also, he says, part of his job is “making sure the talent are talking about the right things.” In that endeavor, it helps to have another Jersey guy he can rely on, although Kevin Burkhardt is an alum of William Paterson, not Seton Hall.
“He’s fantastic,” Shah-Rais said. “He has a great feel for the studio show. He’s great at bringing out the best in them. A genuine, genuine guy, he’s so humble and cares about the product first because he is so selfless. There’s zero ego with a guy who probably should have a healthy ego because he’s so good."
“He’s beyond talented, but such a down-to-earth guy,” Shah-Rais added. “We’d be in trouble without him.”
During his days at The Hall, Shah-Rais enjoyed covering the legendary P.J. Carlesimo.
“Very intense,” Shah-Rais said when asked how he would describe Carlesimo. “He was always fair and very accommodating. He knew everybody's name and ‘I was like wow, this guy is a big-time coach. What does he care about some undergrad?’ It was definitely fun.”
In fact, he covered Carlesimo’s final game, an NCAA tournament loss to Michigan State in St. Petersburg, Fla.
“We thought he was coming back,” Shah-Rais said. “It was a surprise when he left.”
Shah-Rais is impressed with The Hall’s current coach, the Pirates’ most successful one since Carlesimo.
Kevin Willard has been “more than gracious. He inherited a really tough job and he embraced it and what he’s done there, it’s an amazing resurgence. … The job in itself is hard and what he inherited made it even more difficult. Kevin is a great partner to us and so is (former athletic director) Pat Lyons. They’re amenable to anything and everything we want to do.”
Shah-Rais, who has been to MLB All-Star Games and the two-game Yankees-Red Sox series in London earlier this year as part of his FOX producing duties, said the tentative plan is for him to be at the remote pre-game show for the game against Michigan State on Nov. 14 at the Prudential Center. That game will be on FS1.
Also, he noted FOX itself will televise five Seton Hall games this year, and another one will be on CBS. That is the most in the school’s history, according to Seton Hall.
“That’s a lot of national exposure,” he said. “That really says a lot about what Kevin’s done.”
Shah-Rais and FOX are excited about the upcoming Big East season, which will feature the return of several established stars, including Seton Hall’s Powell and Marquette’s Markus Howard.
Shah-Rais was asked to compare Powell to his Seton Hall contemporary, all-time SHU leading scorer Terry Dehere.
“They’re both very good shooters,” he said. “Terry seemed a little longer and a little better defensively. … (But) there’s a lot more pressure on Myles to carry his team. However Myles goes, they go.”
And Shah-Rais and Fox will help bring all of us that story as it unfolds this winter.
https://setonhall.rivals.com/
COMMENTS
As a coordinating producer for FOX Sports, Seton Hall alumnus Bardia Shah-Rais has worked and hung out with the iconic Bill Raftery many times.
And as Shah-Rais said in an interview with PirateCrew.com, Raftery “is as advertised.”
Case in point: Shah-Rais said that once he was scheduled to go out to dinner with the former Seton Hall coach and some other people at a restaurant where you supply your own wine. But those other people cancelled, leaving only Raftery and Shah-Rais.
Raftery brought two bottles, which puzzled Shah-Rais.
Raftery then said, “I know you went to Seton Hall, but what are you, an idiot? One’s for you and one’s for me.”
“That’s Raf for you,” Shah-Rais said, his smile coming across loud and clear across the phone lines.
Raf’s opinion notwithstanding, that Seton Hall education has helped Shah-Rais, a December 1995 graduate, get to where he is now. He was named a “Power Player” in the media by Sports Business Journal last year.
Shah-Rais, who grew up in Irvine California, says he always wanted to be in sports media, and thought SHU was a good place to begin that journey.
“This was always something I wanted to do,” he said, “and I felt Seton Hall was a great school for that,” noting that during his time as an undergraduate in the 1990s, there often were approximately 15 students to a class, giving them more of an opportunity for hands-on, personal instruction than at some bigger universities.
Another reason he went to Seton Hall was because of one of his mentors, former ESPN anchor, reporter and essayist, Bob Ley, a 1976 graduate of The Hall.
“Bob Ley was a mentor,” Shah-Rais said. “He’s one of the main reasons I went to Seton Hall. … He’s such a good person, first and foremost. He’s just a kind, kind man. He’s one of those guys that advises you and steers you in a direction without you knowing it. At the end of the day you come up with the decision on your own, but using a lot of his advice. I’m honestly lucky to have him as a good friend.”
Although Shah-Rais enjoyed his time in South Orange, things didn’t always go smoothly. He still laughs at himself about the time he cursed during a WSOU broadcast because he did not know he was on the air at the time.
Shah-Rais, who eventually rose to sports director at WSOU and also wrote for The Setonian, was in Honolulu covering the Pirates at a Thanksgiving week tournament in 1994. Someone at WSOU innocently asked him, “How’s Hawaii?”
Not knowing they were live on the air, “I said how do you think it is, it’s (bleeping) beautiful,” Shah-Rais recalled with a laugh.
Once he realized his mistake, his mind raced with the possible ramifications, such as expulsion from The Hall or, at the very least, dismissal from the station. But nothing of the sort happened.
“Fortunately, nobody was listening on the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving,” he says now with a chuckle.
Shah-Rais’ professional career began as a production assistant at ESPN in 1996 and later took him to the NFL Network in 2005. But when the Big East split in 2013 was accompanied by FOX gaining rights to the reconstituted Big East for its fledgling FoxSports1 network, Shah-Rais found himself with a decision to make.
“I was perfectly happy at NFL Network,” he recalled, but upon finding out FOX would need someone to help run its college basketball studio shows, “that piqued my interest,” he says. “It was a perfect storm.”
As someone told him at the time, doing this job would be a “labor of love.”
“I didn’t know what he meant then, but now I do,” Shah-Rais said. “It doesn’t seem like work. I’d be watching these games at home anyway.”
Instead, he often gets to interact with Raftery and play-by-play stalwart Gus Johnson, now known to Seton Hall fans for frequently intoning the slogan “What Trenton makes, the world takes” in honor of Pirates’ star Myles Powell, a Trenton native.
Aside from the near-compulsory (and plentiful) late nights spent with Raftery, Shah-Rais is impressed with his continued dedication to his craft.
“He’s such a good and genuine person and he still works so hard at this,” he said of Raftery. “He’s still a grinder and it’s honestly a privilege to work with a legend.”
Shah-Rais noted that Raftery still watches voluminous amounts of tape, not just on the teams he is broadcasting but high-school footage of the freshmen who will be joining those squads. And despite those late nights, he often will be at morning shootarounds on game day, even if he just called a game of that team a few days before.
As for Johnson’s enthusiastic play-by-play style, Shah-Rais said, “He always makes the game feel big. He makes every game feel like the most important thing you could be watching.”
As coordinating producer of studio shows for college basketball and Major League Baseball, Shah-Rais sees his job as being an overseer of the proceedings, even though it is a “collaborative effort,” he said.
“The shows are scripted,” he added, “and we plan on what we want to talk about where and when, but eventually something happens where there’s breaking news or a different discussion on the air than the one we expected. So it’s just about managing that and going along with the flow.”
Also, he says, part of his job is “making sure the talent are talking about the right things.” In that endeavor, it helps to have another Jersey guy he can rely on, although Kevin Burkhardt is an alum of William Paterson, not Seton Hall.
“He’s fantastic,” Shah-Rais said. “He has a great feel for the studio show. He’s great at bringing out the best in them. A genuine, genuine guy, he’s so humble and cares about the product first because he is so selfless. There’s zero ego with a guy who probably should have a healthy ego because he’s so good."
“He’s beyond talented, but such a down-to-earth guy,” Shah-Rais added. “We’d be in trouble without him.”
During his days at The Hall, Shah-Rais enjoyed covering the legendary P.J. Carlesimo.
“Very intense,” Shah-Rais said when asked how he would describe Carlesimo. “He was always fair and very accommodating. He knew everybody's name and ‘I was like wow, this guy is a big-time coach. What does he care about some undergrad?’ It was definitely fun.”
In fact, he covered Carlesimo’s final game, an NCAA tournament loss to Michigan State in St. Petersburg, Fla.
“We thought he was coming back,” Shah-Rais said. “It was a surprise when he left.”
Shah-Rais is impressed with The Hall’s current coach, the Pirates’ most successful one since Carlesimo.
Kevin Willard has been “more than gracious. He inherited a really tough job and he embraced it and what he’s done there, it’s an amazing resurgence. … The job in itself is hard and what he inherited made it even more difficult. Kevin is a great partner to us and so is (former athletic director) Pat Lyons. They’re amenable to anything and everything we want to do.”
Shah-Rais, who has been to MLB All-Star Games and the two-game Yankees-Red Sox series in London earlier this year as part of his FOX producing duties, said the tentative plan is for him to be at the remote pre-game show for the game against Michigan State on Nov. 14 at the Prudential Center. That game will be on FS1.
Also, he noted FOX itself will televise five Seton Hall games this year, and another one will be on CBS. That is the most in the school’s history, according to Seton Hall.
“That’s a lot of national exposure,” he said. “That really says a lot about what Kevin’s done.”
Shah-Rais and FOX are excited about the upcoming Big East season, which will feature the return of several established stars, including Seton Hall’s Powell and Marquette’s Markus Howard.
Shah-Rais was asked to compare Powell to his Seton Hall contemporary, all-time SHU leading scorer Terry Dehere.
“They’re both very good shooters,” he said. “Terry seemed a little longer and a little better defensively. … (But) there’s a lot more pressure on Myles to carry his team. However Myles goes, they go.”
And Shah-Rais and Fox will help bring all of us that story as it unfolds this winter.
https://setonhall.rivals.com/
COMMENTS
