WVOU (Voice of Ursinus) is Collegeville’s only radio station, and arguably one of the most versatile there is. Students are welcome at any time to drop by and host their own show, or play any music that they’d like. Certain shows have become increasingly popular, including Dungeon MacGyvers and The Adam Denn Show, whose hosts shared their experiences with us, taking the stage – or, rather, the mic. Kay Speers ‘27 and Ozzie Pagan ‘27 are both avid DnD (Dungeons & Dragons) players who met in freshman year CIE when Pagan asked Speers, a seasoned player of seven years, to join his campaign. After being successful in many adventures, they decided to share their experiences via radio in Dungeon MacGyvers, which has been airing for the past two semesters. When asked about their favorite experience while podcasting, both had the same response, which is “Schrodinger’s Listeners”. Schrodinger’s Listeners has been an inside joke since early in the show’s history. Both choose not to look at the statistics for how many people listen weekly, so for all they know, it could be zero, or it could be a hundred.
The latter seems more likely, as Ursinus College has an enormous Dungeons & Dragons fanbase, with the DnD club already amassing over 70 members after its founding just last year. In addition to the broadcast, they head up the DnD club with Ozzie as president, and Kay as secretary. Pagan and Speers agree that the most rewarding part of the show is getting to share the game that they bonded over with others, and discuss subjects they are passionate about (with the occasional side tangent). You can join in on the “Dungeon MacGyvers” adventures every Wednesday at 6-7:30 pm on WVOU, accessed by the link on the WVOU’s homepage.
Denn ‘27 has already had his fair share of experience broadcasting, and his latest creation is The Adam Denn Show. Denn says, “I’ve been podcasting for about 4 years, I started during Covid when I made a podcast with my friends called the ‘Broad Street Benchwarmers’ podcast, which was mainly just us nerds talking about Philly Sports. We still do that podcast and have a lot of fun doing it, but I felt like I wanted to be able to do something that allowed me to cover games right after they happened, as it’s very hard to get three college students together with homework and activities and all those things. So I started The Adam Denn Show and have been really enjoying it as a platform to discuss sports in real time. I also started a TikTok for it, and I’ve had a lot of fun using those clips to create interaction with the sports fan communities and share my ‘takes’ on a lot of subjects.”
Denn covers a variety of sports, but chooses to focus in on football and basketball, specifically doing previews of upcoming NFL games, then recapping them for his audience on the show. However, radio broadcasting and being the Sports Editor of The Grizzly wasn’t the start of Denn’s love for sports and journalism. “I’ve had an interest in this since I was about 10 years old. Growing up, watching Eagles games together was a really crucial part of my family, so from a young age I always knew I wanted to be involved in some form of sports journalism. When I was about 11 my dad started printing Peter King’s ‘Monday Morning Quarterback’ columns out for me to read on Monday mornings, and that’s when I kind of fell in love with the art of sports journalism and telling stories through sports. And so ever since then it’s been a passion and a career I’ve wanted to pursue, and to have the opportunities to be able to do that with access to a studio like the one WVOU provides is very exciting and special.”
When asked about his favorite experience, Denn references one of his TikTok videos. “It was about this past year’s NFC Championship game, and I made a prediction that the 49ers would beat the Lions 34-31. I ended up being right about the winner and the score! So that was definitely a really cool experience, it’s a lot of fun when those predictions work out.” Denn is well versed in reaching many listeners, as he not only uses WVOU and TikTok, but also posts his latest radio shows on Spotify. You can catch The Adam Denn Show at 7 am Mondays and Fridays on WVOU. Also on TikTok @adamdennshowwvou.