Hobart Hall’s studio filled with students and staff as they came to watch a special episode of WP Sports Desk early this afternoon.

Kevin Burkhardt, a WP Alumni and Fox Sports analyst, came to William Paterson University to see how it’s journalism department changed over the years.

While visiting, he stepped into a familiar setting by sitting as a guest on a special episode of WP Sports Desk and worked alongside the student analysts of the show.

Burkhardt does play-by-play for football and baseball games on live TV now, but he got his start here at WPU.

After graduating in 1997, he met his wife Rachel, who also attended WPU, and started a job at the radio station WGHT in Pompton Lakes.

He eventually moved on to working at SNY before landing at Fox.

WP Sports Desk hosted a special episode for Burkhardt today which included an exclusive interview and two segments for football and baseball commentary.

After the show, he spoke with students and gave them insight into the industry.

Dante Vocaturo and Samory Rose, students here at William Paterson, got to ask him some questions about his career at this school and his career in the television industry.

“We had a show called Newsline back in the day, similar, but it was news and sports,” Burkhardt said. “We did a lot of games and just anything I could get my hands on to learn.”

He continued to talk about how WPU helped him to become successful in his later years. Burkhardt then recalled how great his professors were.

Rose asked about his job at SNY and Burkhardt explained that he really started out in radio at little stations.

“SNY was my first official full tv job. Yeah, I was the Mets field reporter for a long time there,” Burkhardt said. “I did a little of everything there. I did a little reporting, I traveled with the Mets and was their go-to guy.”

He also hosted shows for SNY. Burkhardt talked about being versatile in this field, which he said is very important.

“You have to have thick skin. If you make a mistake, you get criticized, you just have to roll with it,” Burkhardt said.

He even talked about how he wants to get better, which is important because this can help students.

At the end of the show, Burkhardt expressed his love for the television station here. He emphasized what he got out of it and carried into his career as a sports journalist.

After the interview with both Rose and Vocaturo, Burkhardt was a guest analyst on the football block with Justin Valentovic, Rose and Chris Douglas. The four of them spoke about the NFL draft. In the next block the analysts, Stephen Bologna, Joe Palantonio and Alex Roman spoke with Burkhardt about about various topics in the MLB.

This was a great opportunity for students to meet a professional in the television industry and learn what it takes to work in sports. Burkhardt spoke at the end about how students should be themselves in every way and do what they want to do. One last thing he did was mention to always update your YouTube page.

You can watch the full episode on YouTube now: https://www.youtube.com/watchv=42I9s1z8_GI&list=PLMcML051Z0dLf_yRYrBV1l0Rg4zN7_JAh&index=3