It wasn't that long ago that Matt Gaschk was catching pretty constant grief as the producer for the "Mitch In The Morning" radio show that airs on 950 KJR-AM.
Matt, who had been working for KJR and host Mitch Levy for quite some time, was the early morning guy. He was up by at least 4 a.m. every weekday, lining-up guests, formatting the show, cutting-up highlights and comments from around the country, etc. In other words, he was the "behind the scenes" glue that made the show one of the best-rated AM morning drive programs in Seattle. A thankless job, considering Levy is well-known as a pretty demanding boss.
I met Matt during my first year in Seattle in 2006. He would come out to the Monday football press conferences at the UW and setup the equipment so KJR could carry the coaches' comments live. Most of the time everything worked fine. But, occassionally it didn't. On those rare occasions, Matt was never flustered, had a great attitude and was always a treat to work with.
Inevitably, as it usually does with me these days, the topic of conversation would turn to soccer. Regretfully, he is a Newcastle fan (apparently he picked them because he enjoys a Newcastle beer on occasion - good enough reason I suppose) in the English Premier League. But, I'd generally direct the discussion to how things are going at Arsenal (my favorite). Usually Matt was smart enough to agree with me and to ask about how my son's youth club was doing - that earned a few brownie points for sure!
When Sounders FC got off the ground two seasons ago, the club's management - led by fantastic Senior VP Gary Wright - contacted Matt to work for its website. Such a stroke of genius for the club and a great opportunity for the soccer-lover and longtime USL Sounders supporter.
Prost Amerika Soccer conducted a cool Q & A with Matt in March, 2009 that is worth checking out.
Over the last two years, Matt has added some great content to the site and has been fortunate to be able to travel across the world with the team. The Sounders have the strongest following in MLS and have quickly created an emerging worldwide brand. A little slice of that is due to the efforts of Matt.
A great story of a good guy who took advantage of a tremendous opportunity to do what he loves. Kudos Gaschk!
Read Matt's entries on the Rave Green Blog on SoundersFC.com
Matt is a gem, I have tried to watch content on some of the other team sites, even mlssoccer.com. I am continually blown away by the timelyness, and quality of the content put out by soundersfc.com. not only is the website top notch by I assume its matt behind most @soundersfc content on twitter as well. And on that front, the team is also responsive to fans! Matt is definately "a coollest person" and I hope, selfishly, that noone steals him away.
ReplyDelete