From Small Town MN to National TV; Clay Matvick

ESPN's Clay Matvick is a native Central Minnesotan. He is our next featured person on WJON's My Life Series.  Matvick grew up in southern Morrison County near a small town called Ramey.  He explains he comes from a family of farmers.  Clay lived his first 7 to 8 years there before the family moved to Morris, Minnesota.  His father decided to leave farming to start a career in radio.  Clay's dad had a love of sports and after his mother encouraged him to go to Brown Institute he completed a 10 month course there and became the News Director at KMRS in Morris.

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Clay says he was immediately interested in radio having been exposed at a young age going to the radio station with his dad.  Clay says the family was in Morris from 1981 to 1985.  He says his dad also did some play-by-play at KMRS before leaving.  Clay's father got a job at WQMP in Princeton in 1985.  He says it made sense because Princeton was closer to Rainey and where the family considered home.  When his father went to Princeton he transitioned from on-air to radio sales.  Clay got his first taste of radio when he was in high school at the radio station there as a fill-in part timer working Sunday nights initially.  He also had opportunities to do some play-by-play.  Matvick says this opportunity taught him how to communicate and how to talk to people.

Following high school Clay went into the Army and attended basic training at Fort Knox in Kentucky, he then did advance training in Indiana before returning home to start his reserve duty.  After completing his service it was time to decide where he would go to college.

Matvick majored in mass communications with a speech minor at St. Cloud State.  He says after watching "Husky Magazine" on the old Midwest Sports Channel he decided to pursue a career in TV in addition to radio.  Matvick says his time at SCSU led him to an opportunity at WJON.  WJON's Sports Director at the time was John Schoeder.  John was leaving that position to move to an opportunity in sales at WJON.  He recommended Matvick pursue the job opening and he did.  He was hired in the spring of 1995.  He called SCSU football and men's basketball for 1 season before graduating and leaving WJON for an opportunity in TV.

Matvick in the summer of 1996 took a job working for KDLT TV in Sioux Falls, South Dakota where he was the weekend sports anchor and weekday sports reporter.  He was there for 2 years.  Matvick then took a position working for KMTV in Omaha, Nebraska handling the same type of duties that he handling in Sioux Falls.  He says this exposure led him to an opportunity to work for CNNSI in Atlanta.  Matvick relocated to Atlanta at age 26 working on national TV for this new network.  From there Matvick moved back to Minnesota to work for Fox Sports North from 2001 to 2005.  In the fall of 2005 Matvick did some ESPN TV play-by-play stuff before that became a full-time job in 2006.  He has been there ever since covering college sports primarily for the network.

Clay and his wife and kids reside in Columbus, Minnesota north of the Twin Cities.

If you'd like to listen to my conversation with Clay it is available below.