Paul Carr's workplace can get a little surreal at times. He never knows who he might run into.
Walking through the halls one day, he turned the corner and literally ran smack into Will Ferrell, who was in studio promoting his new movie at the time.
    Then there's Josh Hall, who sat in a TV production truck in Augusta, Georgia, and watched as Tiger Woods nailed his famous winding chip shot at the 2005 Masters on hole No. 16. The roar of the crowd literally shook the vehicle.
    Wheaton College alumni Josh Hall (Class of 1998), Bill Hightower (Class of 2000), Paul Carr (Class of 2002), and Bryan Holmgren (Class of 2006) all have something in common. They cut their teeth at the college's WETN radio station as sports announcers and have since gone on to significant professional success working in various roles in the world of sports.

ARRIVING AT WHEATON
    All four young men arrived at Wheaton College in divergent ways. Bill Hightower grew up in Atlanta, Georgia and had never been outside the southeastern United States. But as a senior in high school, he flew to Wheaton to visit a friend on campus for the weekend. Ultimately, the weather became a deciding factor in his college choice.
    “At 11 PM or midnight, a big group of guys met down at the intramural field, and we played football in snow up to our knees,” Hightower said. “From there, I was sold. I had never experienced snow, and I thought it was the greatest thing ever. I loved it. But then once I was up there the first year, as October became November and December, the novelty wore off.”
    Paul Carr came from Topeka, Kansas because he wanted to go to a Christian school with strong academics and to have the opportunity to work in radio.
    After enrolling at Texas Christian University his freshman year, Bryan Holmgren eventually arrived in a more traditional way – family connections. Bryan's dad played football at Wheaton in the 1970s and a number of relatives also attended the school.
    “After a few months, I realized Wheaton was a fit for me,” Holmgren said. “I also wanted to run track, and Coach [Scott] Bradley gave me the opportunity. WETN was the deciding factor. The facilities, the amount of time and resources they put into it, it was a good opportunity to cut your teeth.”

WORKING AT WETN
    WETN radio (88.1 FM) served as the intersection for this foursome. They all had the same hunger and desire – to broadcast sports and bring the experience of the game to the audience at home.
    “As soon as I knew that I couldn't play professional sports, I knew I had to be involved in some capacity,” Hall said. “I got my feet wet at WETN and learned the basics.”
    The WETN studios reside in the basement of the Billy Graham Center on Wheaton's campus, and WETN Station Manager Mark Bartlebaugh has presided there since arriving at Wheaton in 1999. He was able to observe Hightower, Carr and Holmgren first hand, and he attributed their on-air success to outstanding work ethics.
    “Those guys were initiators. They didn't just do what they were asked to do. They went above and beyond,” Bartlebaugh said. “I was able to give more responsibility to them that they were able to carry in terms of scheduling and production."
    Bartlebaugh continues, “Bryan in particular was his own best critic. He would listen to a lot of his games and evaluate them. He sounded great. He was probably one of the best voices we've ever had on the air since I've been here. He really took the time to give himself criticism and learned from it. Paul would also listen to the games, listen to how he sounded and try to build on that.”
    When Hall was in school, the radio station only broadcasted football and basketball games. He filled in as a color analyst during basketball games his sophomore year before taking the full-time commentator role his junior year. By the time he was a senior, he was the sports director, did play-by-play and worked at gathering sponsors to advertise on the radio.
    Carr worked for WETN for four years, announcing mainly soccer and basketball. But even after he graduated, Paul still found a way to stay involved.
    In 2006, the Wheaton men's and women's soccer teams reached the NCAA Division III Final Four. Since the games fell around Thanksgiving weekend, it was difficult for WETN to find students to get the event staffed for broadcast. That's when Carr stepped in.
    “He sent me an email and said he would be there at the games if we needed an announcer, which we did,” Bartlebaugh said. “He just initiated that. He's followed the Wheaton teams ever since he graduated. It's not like I needed to give him any preparation. It was like he had watched the team all season.”
    So Carr flew down to Orlando, Florida on his own dime and broadcasted the games, in which both teams reached the championship match.
    “The men's semifinal game versus Ohio Wesleyan was really something else,” Carr said. “It was a Cinderella run for our team considering how they rebounded from early season struggles. That game was so tense throughout. And then seeing the happiness from the girls after they won that championship match was great to witness.”
    All four WETN veterans had a number of favorite memories and moments from their time on and off the air at Wheaton. The buzz in the arenas when Wheaton's men's basketball team went to play road games at North Park University and Illinois Wesleyan University was palpable, and Hightower said that bringing that atmosphere to the listeners was special.
    One of Holmgren's favorite moments came when he had to be creative on the fly. There was a shortage of color commentators for a basketball game at North Park, so Bryan enlisted the help of his father Greg to help with commentary. The on-air intro couldn't have been more fitting – “And here we are, Bryan and Greg Holmgren coming to you live from the Holmgren Athletic Complex at North Park University.”
    The Christmas break basketball road trips to Texas and California were highlights for Hall, where he got his first taste of traveling with a team and working on the road. But his favorite game was one he didn't even broadcast. Rather, it was the battle between the No. 1 and No. 2 men's basketball teams in the country – Illinois Wesleyan at Wheaton in the 1995-1996 season.
    “The whole place was packed. It was as close as you can get to a Division I atmosphere,” Hall said. “People were camped out outside to get good seats. We ended up winning that game and storming the floor.”

WHERE THEY ARE TODAY
    With the WETN experience serving as a foundation, all four Wheaton alumni have gone on to pursue successful careers in a variety of fields in the sports world.
    Following his graduation in 2002, Carr landed a part-time job with a radio station in his hometown of Topeka. He supplemented the work by producing high school games on TV and writing articles for the local newspaper before eventually landing a job as the station producer for a sports talk show. He juggled all those duties simultaneously for five years. 
    Then his big break came. An application that he had submitted previously for a researcher position at ESPN was re-reviewed and Carr was hired in February 2008 by the network. Shortly after joining ESPN he was assigned as a researcher for the popular Mike&Mike In The Morning radio show, a position he still holds. Listeners and viewers to the simulcast show can tune in and occasionally hear Mike Greenberg or Mike Golic hollering Paul's name to provide them with whatever information they need.
    Carr's reputation as “the soccer guy” in the research department has opened up additional doors within the company. He is now the lead researcher for next year's World Cup in South Africa, where he will be stationed for six weeks next summer.
    “It was everything I hoped it would be,” Carr said of his ESPN experience thus far. “Now I know why ESPN is the worldwide leader in sports. They put a lot of time, money and effort into everything they do. I'm currently prepping for the World Cup next year in South Africa. I'll be there for 40 days. There's a team of three researchers who supply the entire broadcast team with notes there and for the commentators back in Bristol. I'm in charge of information, historical and current, for every game and every team. Almost every player actually.”
    The position also has some fringe benefits. After a U.S. game in the Confederations Cup a few months ago, Carr found himself in the green room after the game talking soccer with former U.S. national team star Alexi Lalas.

    Hall's post-Wheaton career has taken him all over the country with involvement in almost every sport. During his senior year of college, he received an internship at CLTV, a local Chicago-area news station. Thanks to a light class load, he was at the TV station 40 hours a week.
    The experience proved invaluable. Hall got to cover Michael Jordan's last year with the Chicago Bulls in 1998, the Chicago Cubs making the playoffs and the home run chase between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. He eventually took over as producer for the station's 9:00 PM nightly sports show, a position he held for two-and-a-half years.
    Hall then moved to Salt Lake City, Utah in anticipation of the 2002 Olympics. He used some connections to get hooked up with International Sports Broadcasting, which provided natural sound and video for all Olympic events to all the countries who would use the footage back on their native soil. It was the busiest nine weeks of his life, which featured 110 hour work weeks.
    But it was only the beginning of Hall's travels. He soon netted a gig with CBS Sports in New York City after four months of unanswered emails.
    “I was a Broadcast Associate for three years,” Hall said. “I provided graphics for the broadcasts, basically all the information you see on the screen; all the stats, numbers, etc. I did a lot of traveling. I was gone 45 to 48 weekends out of the year. I didn't even use my apartment. But I got to do a lot of cool, big events.”
    His time at CBS allowed him to cover SEC football, NFL football, college basketball's March Madness, The Masters golf tournament, and even two Super Bowls. Hall's favorite event to cover was definitely the basketball Final Four, where he witnessed North Carolina's win over Illinois and Florida's defeat of UCLA in the national championship games. He still keeps some mementos from those big games.
    “I'm not big on taking pictures of all the events I've been to,” Hall said. “But I keep all the media credentials. I have a couple grocery bags full of those tags.”
    In the summer of 2006, he moved on to Phoenix, Arizona where he now works for the Phoenix Suns basketball team on their local TV broadcasts.

    Hightower's career path led him away from media, but ultimately kept him in the sports realm. He moved back to Atlanta and worked for Equifax for a time in order to pay for the bills and for an engagement ring.
    Bill still had an itch for a career in sports, especially the business and management side that piqued his interest. He went on to three years of law school at the University of Georgia and ended up taking a job with a sports agent in the fall of 2004.
    “I took that position thinking it was just a part-time thing,” Hightower said. “It ended up turning into four-and-a-half years. I was a NFL Players Association Certified Contract Adviser, which are fancy words for being an agent. I worked alongside another agent and worked out over $500 million in contracts during that time.”
    Hightower's current position is Staff Counsel for the Atlanta Spirit LLC which owns and operates the NBA's Atlanta Hawks basketball team, the NHL's Atlanta Thrashers hockey team and Phillips Arena.

    Holmgren didn't even finish his senior year at Wheaton before he netted his current job. In August 2005, he was offered a spot at the local CBS-TV affiliate in his hometown of Wichita, Kansas, which also happens to be the 59th largest television market in the country. Bryan still managed to get his college degree through a long, complicated process of taking classes remotely thanks to some very understanding and accommodating professors.
    “I had zero TV experience, and it was a part time opening at Channel 12 in Wichita,” Holmgren said. “I'm very lucky to be in this situation. I'm on TV doing sports. I can edit, shoot, write, anchor, even be my own cameraman. It's a gradual process of learning on the fly, to see what works and what doesn't.”
    But even in Kansas, Wheaton connections still managed to pop up. When Holmgren was covering University of Kansas men's basketball at the 2008 Final Four, he was walking down San Antonio's famed Riverwalk, interviewing fans. Later, someone approached Bryan - it was Wheaton College men's basketball coach Bill Harris, who recognized Bryan and stopped to chat.

EXPANSION
    In the years since Hall and Hightower first started at WETN, the station has continued to expand and grow its audience every year. Streaming live on the internet has been a big reason for that expansion, which began 10 years ago when Bartlebaugh first came to Wheaton. A few years later, WETN added the TV station which is on local cable in four surrounding communities. Home football, basketball and soccer games are weekly broadcast staples.
    “Last year, we had 1,500 people watching the Wheaton vs. Bethel football game,” Bartlebaugh said. “Some of those were Bethel fans and parents. We found we are doing more coverage than any school in the CCIW in terms of how many games we cover. We've added more modes of delivery. We try to do as many games as our resources allow us to do.”

RETROSPECTIVE
    Looking back at their collegiate years, all four alumni agree that Wheaton College shaped their formative early adult years and helped put them onto the path to where they are now. The experience and opportunities afforded by WETN proved to be a great training ground to develop and refine their media skills.
    “It was a great opportunity to do lots of games, travel with the teams and get to know them,” Carr said. “I got to go to Final Fours with soccer and see other parts of the country. At bigger schools, it's harder to break in and maybe by your senior year you'd get to do a sports hour on radio or something. I just had so many opportunities. I did over 100 games at the collegiate level.”
    The learning process of preparation, research and interviewing was a big benefit for Holmgren. His view was you only learn something once you do it. But the spiritual aspects of Wheaton also factored heavily in building maturity.
    “As far as the college experience as a whole, Wheaton had a great curriculum with great professors,” Holmgren said. “There have been a lot of ups and downs over the last few years. It has reinforced that God has a plan for me. The spiritual lessons I learned at Wheaton helped me out.”
    The involvement of the faculty in the students' lives was also an aspect Hightower remembers vividly. After being away from school for a few years, that appreciation grew in retrospect.
    “One time, our statistics professor invited the students to his house for a review session. When I tell other people that, they are amazed because they never had their professors doing anything like that with them,” Hightower said. “You realize how invested they were in helping you learn and mature. You do a lot of maturing between the ages of 18-22. They were invested in helping students grow. You don't get to experience that type of Christian teaching anywhere else in the country. It's incredible.”
    The camaraderie and lifetime relationships developed at Wheaton continue to this day. Hightower met his wife Tonya at Wheaton and all four men have college friends that are still some of their closest even long after graduation.
    “It's such a great educational basis, a great faith-based foundation to start from,” Hall said. “My best friends still are my roommates from college.”