Dave Popkin has been the lead color commentator for the Seton Hall men’s basketball team since 2002. During the NCAA Basketball season, Popkin can be heard on the Radio calling Seton Hall Pirates men’s basketball games with play-by-play announcer, Gary Cohen.
I first met Dave when I attended the Bruce Beck and Ian Eagle Sports Broadcasting camp. I remember on the last day, the organizers arranged for all the kids to go see a Somerset Patriots game. But while it was fun, it was meant to be a learning experience. We interviewed Somerset’s general manager, former Yankees pitcher Sparky Lyle as well as the head coach and several players. During the game, we sat in the stands and called the game into our voice recorders.
As he was a camp instructor, Dave walked around listening in to how we were doing. He walked up to me and provided a few thoughts on the game, before telling me I was one of the lucky campers who would get the chance to go into the booth and call a half-inning live! I got to do it and it was a great experience that wouldn’t have been possible without my parents of course, but Dave, who took an interest in teaching me what he knew.
Jersey Sporting News is dedicated to providing coverage of athletes, broadcasters who are from or have lived in New Jersey. Prepare to learn about how a young man from the Jersey Shore became a professional sports broadcaster who calls games for CBS Sports, SNY, and ESPN +. This journey began in a small town on the Jersey Shore.
Growing up on the Jersey Shore
Dave Popkin grew up in Neptune, New Jersey. Neptune is a small town near Belmar in Monmouth County. Popkin and sports go way back, back to the late 1970s and early 80s, which was a time before the Internet, when pre-teens would bond with each other by playing basketball and baseball on sandlots and in parks.
The Seton Hall University color commentator offered a glimpse into what his childhood was like, in a small town on the North Jersey Shore.
We played outside all the time– that’s what kids did. We would wear the different helmets of the [Major League] baseball teams and, whatever season it was, that was the sport we played. It was a great, great way to grow up.”
Seton Hall Men’s Basketball Color Commentator, Dave Popkin
Baseball was Dave Popkin’s “first love” as a child and collecting sports cards was one of his favorite activities. Organizing pick-up sports games with friends taught him about many facets of life and he looked back on it as a positive early life experience.
“I learned a lot about everything. I learned about business, reading, writing, stats and sports history. It was a really good basis for me, and I still collect. It’s been a constant of sorts that keeps me connected [to my favorite sports] very much the way that some announcers I know play fantasy sports and it keeps them connected to the sports they cover.”
How Dave’s Career was Born
Nowadays, parents put their kids in sports broadcasting camps if they are interested in it, but when Dave was growing up, there weren’t any.
As a result, Dave’s first experience of sports broadcasting, wasn’t very glamorous, no it was just a high school kid sitting in the bleachers with microphone and camera, while he did the play-by-play for his own high school team. Dave described how this happened:
‘My basketball coach handed me a video camera and said ‘Hey, you’d be of more use to us if you became the video coordinator for the team and helped us scout, basically becoming part of the coaching staff, instead of being the 13th man on the team… So, I took him up on the offer and started announcing the games into the shot-gun mic on the camera and I would sit [at games] and call the games from the top row of the bleachers.”
Popkin knew that the scouting work would be hard work and it’s also clear that he loved watching basketball, or else he probably would have quit there, but he didn’t. Instead he chose to embark on a quest that would lead him down the right path, professionally.
I brought those tapes back to the coaches and they gave me positive feedback and told me ‘Hey you should do this. Look at schools with good communication programs.’ I did, I looked at all of them and eventually decided on the University of Miami, which was an amazing opportunity.”
Dave Popkin
The University of Miami
Dave enrolled at the University during it’s heyday, the late 1980s and early Nineties. The Miami Football program had already won two National Championships when Dave arrived, but afterwards were able to win another three National Championships, which gives the University five total.
“We ended up winning two, almost three National championships while I was there. I did exactly 200 games. The baseball team had me throw out the first pitch at my last game and it was an incredible experience.
Dave told me that he was visiting the campus one day when he ran into Jimmy Johnson and Brent Musburger. Johnson had won two NCAA’s as Miami’s head football coach at the time, and Dave told me that Musburger was one of the most famous sports broadcasters. All in all, Dave was able to hone his skills feverishly as a sportscaster in a perfect college sporting environment.
“It was exactly what I needed. The games were at a high-level and our radio station was very good and there was competition. Dan LeBatard was there, Todd Wright was there when I went there and a lot of people who have become local and national pro sportscasters.”
Seton Hall University
Popkin started calling games for Seton Hall University in 2003 when the Pirates’ men’s basketball team was not as good as they are today. Under Head coach Kevin Willard the Seton Hall program became one of New Jersey’s premier college basketball programs.
Dave has been the lead color commentator for Seton Hall Men’s Basketball for the last 18 seasons. He described how, for the last decade, his broadcasting partner and the crew would travel with the team on road trips. Popkin described his experience doing weekly Basketball shows for “Four Millennium Stations” on the road.
“We would travel around to various arenas, sports bars, and studios to do the weekly show,” Popkin, “It was doing Seton Hall and Northeast Conference [basketball] at the same time that I was hosting the show. You get to talk to [so many different] athletic directors, coaches, scouts and it was a great learning experience.”
SHU Basketball color man, Dave Popkin
So, it’s been 17 years since Popkin started out with Seton Hall, doing interviews with sponsors, helping develop the team’s website. Dave said he did anything he could in the early going to put Seton Hall University back on the map.
I cherish my relationship with Seton Hall,” Popkin said. “When they ask me to do anything extra, I’m happy to do it because I’m part of team and I consider it all part of my duties. Not just showing up and calling the games. – Dave Popkin
The Sports Broadcasting Camp
In addition to calling college sports for major TV and streaming networks like ESPN +, Dave Popkin is a main instructor at the “Sports Broadcasting Camp” along with his friend and colleague, Brooklyn Nets Radio Analyst, Tim Capstraw. They have taken control of the camp after its founder Bruce Beck of NBC 4 New York broadcasting fame, decided to turn it over to Popkin who had worked with him for 14 of his 15 years of involvement.
The Sports Broadcasting Camp was held virtually last July and November and Popkin said that for the most part, the kids enjoyed the July sessions more.
Our July campers who had been to the in-person camp before, said they preferred the online camp. We did a lot of exercises, there was not a lot down time. They could be in their own space, and we were able to get announcers [to teach the kids] from across the country.
After many years of working closely with the Sports Broadcasting Camp, Popkin was able to inform me of ex-campers who have gone on to accomplish things in the world of professional sports broadcasting. One recent example is Gregg Caserta, an alum of the Beck & Eagle camp, who recently called a Mets game on WCBS radio, as a fill-in for longtime Mets radio voice, Howie Rose.
Furthermore, Noah Eagle, the son of Ian Eagle, who is the play-by-play voice of the Brooklyn Nets on the YES Network, was recently hired as the play-by-play voice on television for the Los Angeles Clippers of the NBA. The number of current professional sportscasters who developed their broadcasting skills with Popkin, Beck, Eagle and Mike Quick, could go on, but I will let Dave describe what the virtual camp entailed.
Instead of getting guest speakers in New York and New Jersey, we had Jared Greenberg from TNT in Atlanta, Dave Sims from Seattle and Ben Wagner in Florida. It gave us an opportunity to broaden our guests.
Summing up Dave’s Career
One thing that Popkin should be credited for being, as a sportscaster, is versatile. He may still be calling Seton Hall men’s basketball games, however that is not all he does. According to Dave Popkin’s website, Dave can be seen on as many as four different sports broadcasting networks including, CBS Sports, SNY and ESPN.
As far as which sports Dave can call and has called? Well, he has covered minor league baseball, college soccer and college baseball, in addition to Seton Hall men’s college basketball. That is what stands out to me about this man, he has made very smart decisions when it came to his career, going back to when he was a high school kid, who realized he was not going to be a collegiate or professional athlete and in turn, began commentating games with his friend in the back row of the bleachers at high school gyms.
Anthony Paradiso 