Tiger Talk is a podcast run by Oxy Athletics that allows student-athletes to share their voices and personalities while promoting their teams across campus. According to the Occidental athletics website, the platform gives athletes the opportunity to step away from the usual conversations surrounding competition.
Athletics communications assistant Justin Lee said he started the podcast as a way to create more opportunities for the athletics community.
“[Tiger Talk] is a way to make a platform for all the people who are involved in athletics,” Lee said.
Assistant athletic director for communications Joe Perrino said the goal of Tiger Talk is to conduct more personal interviews that differ from traditional sports coverage. The podcast also gives students the opportunity to discuss who they are outside of athletics.
“[Tiger Talk is] a way to showcase our athletes and coaches in a more personable, fun way,” Perrino said. “We do still ask questions about their team and their sport and how everything is going on the field.”
Lee said the platform is intended to give athletes from different teams the ability to share their experiences with each other.
“It’s a space for everybody to share their own story and promote the teams,” Lee said. “[Tiger Talk is] bringing attention to the sports that may not usually get that much attention.”
According to Perrino, Tiger Talk also focuses on connecting the athletic department with the broader Occidental community. Perrino said showcasing student-athletes can help prospective students better understand the college and the athletic community as a whole.
“We really focus on our student-athletes, having them get highlighted and having a good experience while they are at Oxy,” Perrino said. “Hopefully if [someone] sees an episode, they’re like, ‘Oh this is cool, they really care about what we’re doing,’ and maybe it influences their decision to come to the college.”
Lee said he is appreciative of the students who have helped with Tiger Talk, such as student-athlete interviewers Ila Giblin (junior) and Charlotte Dreyfus (junior), who were onboarded to help based on their previous work commentating on Occidental sports livestreams.
“Ila [Giblin] and Charlotte Dreyfus are amazing at what they do,” Lee said. “They have a great personality, and it makes sense to have them also [talk to] athletes because they are athletes.”
Giblin said the interviews also provide athletes with opportunities to discuss their most recent successes.
“The interviews, specifically, are for highlighting things that are going on, like current events,” Giblin said. “Getting to know players, things like that.”
Perrino said his role in Tiger Talk centers on identifying athletes to feature, while Lee came up with the idea and oversees the specific developments of each episode.
“I just direct and tell people who would be good athletes to spotlight,” Perrino said.
Lee said he hopes to expand Tiger Talk’s scope of coverage in the future.
“The vision that I have for this is to bring in different ways of attracting attention to what we have on our campus,” Lee said.
Perrino said he plans to focus on listening to student-athlete feedback to help determine how the podcast can improve. Perrino said he was brainstorming ideas for social media expansion after interviewing Owen Wolak (senior).
“At the end of the year I’ll definitely be interested to hear some feedback from student-athletes and viewers on what they thought about [Tiger Talk] and how we can improve it in the future,” Perrino said. “I was talking to Owen, and he was saying how it would be cool to start a Spotify page […] and I want to get [the interviews] up on YouTube.”
Giblin said the target audience of Tiger Talk is Occidental student-athletes, but she believes the platform can achieve a much wider audience.
“I’m sure there’s hopes to get a wider scope [like] non-athletes, and then other schools and kind of [gain] traction,” Giblin said. “That’s part of the goal for the podcast. It’s getting out there.”
Perrino said he has learned major lessons since he began hosting Tiger Talk interviews.
“First off, you definitely have to be comfortable getting in front of the camera and being able to watch yourself,” Perrino said. “You really watch your own podcast and then take notes from that, and just continue to get better moving forward.”
Lee said he wants to share his love of Occidental sports with everyone.
“We want to know who you are,” Lee said. “We want you to be laid back. We want you to tell us about how everything is going on the team because at the end of the day, this is meant to be a fun thing. It’s meant to show your love of a sport that they are playing here, which is exciting.”
Contact Gray Sheridan at gsheridan@oxy.edu
