Radio hosts Alex and Josh hang with field hockey team

Radio broadcasters don’t usually compete well with Division I athletes, but Alex Starr and Josh Dodds of B97 kept up with the field hockey team.

Field hockey is the fourth sport B97 has competed in. It was probably their best showing.  
This year, IU’s marketing department started a program in which two athletes from IU get to be on the B97 radio station, and the two broadcasters get to challenge teams from Olympic sports.

“I’m glad that we are building awareness for these IU sports,” Starr said.

People had to predict before they would play the sport whether the radio personalities would make Varsity or Junior Varsity.

“The videos of how Alex and Josh competed against those varsity sports will play during the timeouts and halftime of the football games,” said Jeremy Gray, director of broadcasting services.

Gray and the IU marketing department came up with this idea because B97 promotes
itself as “the home of IU Olympic sports.”

Before playing against the field hockey team, the broadcasters faced both soccer teams, both cross-country teams and the rowing squad.

“This program is to show how hard these sports are,” Gray said. “They are pretty challenging for the average person to compete against a skilled athlete”.

On Wednesday, Starr and Dodds faced off against some of the athletes and competed in drills like the “Rob the Cradle,” one-on-one defense, and another drill where the broadcaster played defense against senior midfielder Meg O’Connell and some other Hoosiers.  

“It means a lot to have this attention on Olympic sports,” IU field hockey coach Amy Robertson said.

The broadcasters started off with the “Rob the Cradle,” in which they got to take shots against junior goalkeeper Alex Mann.

The “Rob the Cradle” drill has two players passing the ball twice to each other and, when ready, they take a shot from the top of the half circle.

Both broadcasters failed to score a goal, while the athletes made this drill look easy, scoring almost every time.

After the first drill was over, Dodds put on the goalie outfit for the next two drills, while Starr warmed up on his defensive skills.  

“These athletes are so talented,” Dodds said. “They are some of the best field hockey athletes in the nation.”

They would have to make a comeback if they wanted to receive varsity scores from Gray and some of the other media relations department people.

“They were tougher competition then we expected, and their skills impressed us,” O’Connell said.

While they were waiting for Dodds to put on his equipment, O’Connell and junior forward Lena Grote showed Starr some stick skills.

In the next drill, Starr played one-on-one defense against some of the Hoosiers to prevent a goal and Dodds played goalkeeper, just in case Starr didn’t stop them.

“We were sweating up a storm out there,” Dodds said. “Field hockey is a very difficult sport.”

With that drill, the Hoosiers only got one goal from senior midfielder Elizabeth Schmidt as Starr prevented most of the athletes from even getting a scoring opportunity.

“I can officially say I’m out of breath,” freshman defender Hannah Boyer said after she tried to get past Starr’s defense.

The B97 guys won that drill and tied it up 1-1.

“Josh played like an ice hockey goalie, which normally isn’t how a field hockey goalie plays, but it worked to their advantage,” O’Connell said.

During the next drill, the Hoosiers got more opportunities on goal, but Dodds made some great saves, which helped them earn their varsity honors for field hockey.

“The commitment that the marketing and media relations department makes seems to be coming around,” Robertson said.

B97 will continue this challenge of playing Olympic sports until the end of the year.

“These sports we’ve played so far have been fun, but field hockey was the best we’ve done so far,” Starr said.