Bob Ahrens, the longtime executive producer of WFUV Sports, revered by generations of Fordham students and alumni as an exacting teacher and lifelong mentor, died on August 19 after a long illness. He was 89.
By treating students as working professionals and holding them to network-level standards of preparation and precision during his two decades at Fordham’s public media station, he helped dozens of students launch careers—at the mic and behind the scenes—with pro sports teams and leagues and at top media outlets including CBS Sports, ESPN, Prime Video, SiriusXM, and the YES Network.
A Major League Legacy: Helping Students Find Their Voice
Ahrens insisted on pro standards not only for the training value but also because in the late 1990s—thanks to his belief in his students and his persistence on their behalf—WFUV reporters earned full credentials to cover all of New York City’s major professional sports teams alongside seasoned beat reporters.
“I thought if we’re going to do this the right way, we should go to the major league games and train the students how to be broadcasters and how to do interviews,” Ahrens once said.
Determined to secure true access, he famously turned down a single-game, no-clubhouse offer from the Mets and instead persuaded the New York Yankees to grant full credentials to student reporters. Within two years, he expanded that access across the local sports landscape.
That confidence and commitment paid off. During Ahrens’ tenure, WFUV produced the likes of longtime ESPN host Tony Reali ’00; CBS Sports’ Spero Dedes ’01; the NFL Network’s Mike Yam ’03; ESPN’s lead WNBA play-by-play announcer Ryan Ruocco ’08; Yankees broadcasters Justin Shackil ’09 and Emmanuel Berbari ’21; and Prime Video’s Mike Watts ’15, to name just a handful of the many Fordham grads who credit Ahrens for their postgraduate success.
“Bob Ahrens’ impact on WFUV and generations of Fordham students is hard to overstate,” said Rich McLaughlin ’01, ’10 MBA, interim general manager of Fordham’s public media station, who was among Ahrens’ first students at the station. “He understood that sports broadcasting was about far more than calling a game—it was about preparation, judgment, storytelling, and giving student sportscasters the confidence to find their voice.
“The sports program he built created opportunities that shaped countless careers and lives, and his legacy will forever be deeply embedded in WFUV. We’re enormously grateful for everything Bob gave to the station, to Fordham, and to the generations of students he mentored. I’m proud to be one of them, and I already miss Bob tremendously.”
Building a Fordham Network of Sports Media Excellence
Ahrens joined WFUV in 1997 as the sports division’s first professional producer, recruited by legendary New York sports broadcaster Marty Glickman, who had been coaching Fordham students at the station since 1987. When Glickman retired in 1999, Ahrens took up the mantle, sharing Glickman’s mantra, “Consider the listener,” while imparting his own decades of high-level production experience in advertising.
While student broadcasters were initially skeptical of a professional executive producer, Ahrens quickly won them over through his dedication to their growth.
“We were so fiercely and proudly student-run that we weren’t sure exactly what to make of a professional executive producer,” Tony Reali said in Off the Air: The Legacy of WFUV Sports, a 2020 documentary directed and produced by Evan Jaenichen ’20. But when Ahrens explained that Reali would have access to the New York Yankees clubhouse to cover the 1996 World Series champions, Reali was immediately sold on the benefits of learning in a professional environment.
An Ability to Link Generations
Ahrens brought that same persistence to building relationships with WFUV Sports alumni, persuading them to return to Rose Hill for workshops and tape critiques with students.
While the station’s reputation as a launchpad for top sportscasters dates back to Vin Scully ’49—who was among WFUV’s first voices when it launched in 1947—Ahrens took that tradition to new heights, according to New York Knicks broadcaster Mike Breen ’82, the lead voice for the NBA on ESPN and ABC.
“WFUV sports was never better and reached its apex under the guidance of Bob Ahrens,” Breen said during a 2018 WFUV interview celebrating Ahrens’ career. Breen recalled starting to receive “those Bob Ahrens phone calls” in the late 1990s: “You quickly realized he did always want something, but you knew that he never was for himself. Ever. Not one single time would he make a phone call and ask a favor for himself. Every single time it was for the students.”
Scully, too, regularly gave back before he died in 2022, conducting workshops with students by phone and calling in to speak with the hosts of One on One, New York’s longest-running sports talk show.
For Ahrens, reinforcing the strength of the alumni network was essential. “Without the alumni, what has happened here doesn’t work,” he noted in 2018. “The fact that they’re around and can also vouch to the teams that they are involved with makes a big difference.”
High Standards and Legendary Connections
Alumni often joke about Ahrens’ stinginess with praise—the peak of his approval might be a terse “fine” or “good.”
Ryan Ruocco recalled trying to record a 60-second broadcast for Ahrens during his junior year, only for Ahrens to reject it twice—first for running 3 seconds long, then for coming up 2 seconds short. “It teaches you to be precise and professional,” Ruocco said, noting that Ahrens’ rigor gave students the confidence to hold their own in major league locker rooms and at the Super Bowl and other high-profile events before graduation.
Beyond his hands-on work with students at WFUV, Ahrens was an adjunct professor at Fordham. He taught a course on ethics in sports broadcasting, “which some think is an oxymoron,” he once quipped to a New York Times reporter, who summarized his core advice:
“To those announcing games, he emphasizes the importance of learning the vocabulary of court and field geography and to realize that, at least on the radio, you can almost never err by frequently giving down and distance, score and time. To those on talk shows, he preaches preparation and candor: keep your foot out of your mouth by admitting you don’t know something.”
Ahrens was equally relentless in connecting students with industry icons. Drew Casey ’17, now an on-camera host for the New York Yankees, recalled being assigned to cover Fordham water polo in his first year at WFUV. Unsure how to approach it, he asked for advice. Ahrens immediately called legendary hockey announcer Mike “Doc” Emrick—who had called water polo at the Olympics—and soon Casey was picking the brain of a broadcasting icon.
“Bob didn’t have a PhD in philosophy or theology, but he will forever be regarded as one of the most committed, demanding, impactful, and beloved teachers and mentors in the history of Fordham University,” Malcolm Moran ’75 posted on X after Ahrens’ passing.
Moran, who directs the Sports Capital Journalism Program at Indiana University Indianapolis, launched One on One as a Fordham student in 1974 before a Hall of Fame career as a basketball journalist. “It’s a very, very difficult thing when you’re working with students … to set a high standard but at the same time convince them that you’re on their side,” Moran said of Ahrens on a recent episode of One on One. “And he was able to do that as well as anybody.”
Don’t Let Competition Affect Your Friendships
Ahrens’ guidance extended beyond the broadcast booth. Knowing students would inevitably compete for the same positions at the station and in the industry, he urged them never to let competition compromise their support for each other.
“He not only prepared us for the X&O’s of this business but made sure we always prioritized being great teammates and good people,” Ruocco wrote in a tribute on Instagram.
Tony Reali echoed that sentiment in an essay honoring Ahrens as the “teacher who made me believe in my voice,” describing “a Bob magic trick”—making “each and every one of us swear we were his favorite. That’s exactly how he made us feel. He saw you. He valued you. He made you believe you had something real inside you.”
“Bob Ahrens was a true mensch,” said WFUV Sports Director Bobby Ciafardini, who succeeded Ahrens in 2018. “His passion for sports journalism, his belief in the next generation, and his commitment to teaching the stars of tomorrow were extraordinary. I’m incredibly grateful for his guidance, wisdom, and friendship over the years. I’m honored to have been his assistant and now to carry the torch for the program he built.”
A Lifelong Brooklyn Dodgers Fan
Born in Brooklyn on April 13, 1937, Ahrens fell in love with broadcasting in the late 1940s listening to Red Barber and, later, Fordham’s own Vin Scully call Brooklyn Dodgers games.
He pursued that passion at Syracuse University, studying broadcasting while working as a statistician for the NBA’s Syracuse Nationals. Following a six-month stint in the U.S. Army at Fort Bliss, he returned to New York and worked for the media company run by talk-show pioneer Tex McCrary, alongside William Safire and Barbara Walters, before establishing a successful career as an advertising production executive with accounts including Procter & Gamble and Coca-Cola.
Under Ahrens’ leadership from 1997 to 2018, WFUV Sports earned broad recognition, securing honors from the Society of Professional Journalists, the New York Press Club, the New York State Broadcasters Association, and the Gracie Awards.
In 2014, WFUV created the Bob Ahrens Award for Excellence in Sports Journalism to recognize outstanding student leadership. And last year, Fordham Athletics honored his legacy by establishing an award in his name at its annual Hall of Fame Dinner, making Ahrens its inaugural recipient. (Next month, Malcolm Moran will become the first Fordham graduate to receive the honor.)
‘Almost Like a Family Tree’
Following his retirement, Ahrens remained close with generations of alumni. When health challenges arose in recent years, former students and friends stepped forward to support him. Joseph Buono ’04 organized a GoFundMe, and Randi Casey, mother of Drew Casey ’17, served as his caregiver, helping him transition to the Center for Hope in Scotch Plains, New Jersey.
Surrounded by station memorabilia and photos of former students, Ahrens quickly won over the hospice staff as a “lovable curmudgeon.”
“On his last day, volunteers came in on their day off just to be with him,” said Randi Casey, who also helped organize calls so former students could say goodbye. “Everyone kept saying, ‘I wouldn’t be the man or woman I am today without your instruction. … I’ll never forget you, Bob.’”
One of his final public outings was returning to Rose Hill to accept the inaugural Bob Ahrens Award from Fordham Athletics on October 17, 2025. “That night, he held onto that award with both hands—he wouldn’t let it go,” Casey said. “He was absolutely in his glory.”
In the 2020 documentary Off the Air, Ahrens reflected on his decades guiding student journalists.
“There’s an old Jackie Robinson quotation,” he said, paraphrasing the Dodger great. “A life is worthwhile only in the impact it has on other lives. There have been a lot out there, and I’m very proud of them. A good amount of them are still in touch over the years. It’s almost like a family tree.”
Ahrens is survived by his daughter, Jody, and son, Daryl. A public celebration of his life will be held at Rose Hill on Thursday, September 24. Details will be announced soon.
Kelly Prinz ’15 contributed reporting.
More Tributes to Bob Ahrens
Here is just a sampling of the many messages of gratitude Ahrens’ former students have shared on social media in recent days, plus a 2014 video tribute from his friend Vin Scully.
