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Grayson Wolf wasn’t able to start working on WOUB’s Gridiron Glory until his sophomore year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But once he got involved with the high school football show, Wolf was all in.

Wolf, a journalism news and information major, grew up in northeast Ohio and loved high school sports. He decided to pursue a sports media career because he wanted to find a way to be involved in the sports industry.

“In 6th grade I figured out I wasn’t going to be a professional athlete,” said Wolf with a laugh. “I needed another way to keep sports in my life.”

During Wolf’s sophomore year he helped behind the scenes on Gridiron any way that he could.

“During week four or five of the high school football season, we went all the way to West Virginia to watch Trimble play, and they lost in overtime. I took pictures and helped with live tweeting.  It was so cool. Being able to be back involved in high school football down on the sideline was so cool.”

Wolf also got to cover Newark Catholic’s run to the state championship that year. During his junior year, Wolf was able to leverage that experience to become the lead reporter for the OVAC conference.

“I got to be on-air four or five times that year, which was really great,” said Wolf.

Wolf was excited about the opportunity to be on the air, but still thought he had some work to do to get better at it. So, he didn’t even enter his name into consideration to be Gridiron host for his senior year.

“I applied for a lead reporter position and went in for my interview, and they asked me why I didn’t go out for host,” said Wolf. “I told them that it was a big responsibility, and I didn’t know how I would manage it with the other things I do. But they encouraged me to put my name in and at least go through the host interview process. So, I did.”

While doing that, he spoke with his family and girlfriend who told him that if he was offered the role, he should accept.

“A couple of weeks later, I got an email from Molly Kennedy at WOUB, and I thought it was a rejection after seeing the preview, so I didn’t even open it,” said Wolf laughing. “When I got home, I thought, okay I need to face this and I opened it to be completely shocked that I was offered the position to be host. It took me by total surprise.”

Wolf was honored to be the host during season 24 because it was the season that all of the students who didn’t get to work on Gridiron as freshman were now seniors, which made the experience special.

“We brought back Fan of the Week, which scared me a little bit, but I had the opportunity to make this something really, really cool. We worked hard each week to make it really funny and did something different every time,” said Wolf. “Being able to go out and talk to people each week in the community was awesome. People really cared about our show. They cared about who was in the running for player of the year and appreciated the coverage, which was great.”

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