Tyson Sprick was born to be a Tigers fan.
“I’ve followed Mizzou sports all my life,” he said. Both his parents are MU graduates, and he grew up in Kansas City.
And there is no question that Sprick has saturated himself with MU sports coverage. The MU sophomore and journalism major currently shares his enthusiasm with other fans through his Welcome to the Zou blog on the Most Valuable Network, a Web site dedicated to independent sports media.
Sprick heard about MVN through his friend, Steve Weinman, an MU junior, who currently blogs about the NBA and the St. Louis Rams on the same Web site. Sprick found that there wasn’t a blogger dedicated to Mizzou sports at the time, and so he e-mailed MVN and got the job in May.
“Most of the feedback has been pretty positive,” he said. “I’m doing it more than anything for experience and for fun.”
Besides writing about the Tigers, Sprick talks about them on the weekly Thursday evening radio show “The Pound” on KCOU. Sprick hosts the show along with Weinman and MU students Mike Bittner and John Howe. He prefers radio, he said, because “anyone can blog these days, but not everyone has the opportunity to have a live radio show.”
Sprick also had the chance to be the announcer at the MU vs. Illinois State football game. He will also be announcing at some upcoming MU women’s soccer games, and hopes to do the same at some MU men’s basketball games this winter.
What’s his best Tiger memory?
“The MU-KU basketball game at home in 2006,” he recalled. “With the game tied, Christian Moody missed two free throws with less than a second left and Mizzou forced overtime. They eventually won. The crowd was the loudest I have ever heard. I still get chills when I watch the replays.”
As for the future, Sprick sees himself staying focused on sports media, working his way up “the sports journalism ladder” nationally.
“I plan to be a sports broadcaster and announce games on the radio or TV,” he said. “It’s just a matter of getting there.”