Ian Steele followed his dream to a career in sports journalism

MARSHFIELD - It had been a trying few weeks for Marshfield's Ian Steele after his college graduation. He'd devoted himself to learning by doing and tried to tackle every aspect of the industry he was hoping to work in, even winning national recognition for some of his collegiate work.  But sending out his resume' and samples of his work to dozens of potential employers had yielded few results.

"It was tough, when everyone I knew seemed to be starting their jobs, and I was just going to the coffee shop, opening my laptop and trying to see if I'd had any offers, or figuring where else I could apply, or if maybe even I should start thinking about a career pivot," Steele recalled.

Finally, Steel got that chance he'd been waiting for.  It was across the country in Corpus Christi, Texas, and while he didn't know much about the area, Steele didn't hesitate.

"I packed everything I owned into my hand-me-down Hyundai Sonata, and drove down, solo" he said. "With a couple stops it took me about four days. It was the first offer I got, but once that call came, I knew I had to say goodbye and head to Texas."

That was just the professional beginning of what is turning out to be a marvelous career in broadcasting, as these days Steel is a full-time sports reporter for WLNE-TV, Channel 6 in Providence.  But it is a career that has its roots in the telecommunications program at Marshfield High, and two-and-a-half year internship at Marshfield radio station WATD-FM.  

Steele is a 2010 graduate of Marshfield High, where he was a two-way lineman on some of the Rams' best football teams, including a Super Bowl champion in his senior year. He continued his education at Emerson College in Boston, graduating in 2014 after having worked in all phases of broadcasting for the school's WEBN, and ENB news operations.

That fateful trip to Texas landed him a job with KIII-TV in Corpus Christi, where he honed his skills covering a wide variety of sports, including Texas A&M-Corpus Christi college teams, the AA Minor League baseball Corpus Christi Hooks, and of course high school football.

When long-time WLNE-TV 6 sports anchor Ken Bell retired in 2017, Steele was more than happy to apply for the opening, and was eventually hired in August of that year. His boss is another South Shore product, Plymouth North (and Emerson) alumnus Nick Coit. 

"Marshfield High has a great program for telecomms," said Steele. "I got involved with their programs, basically the early morning announcements, sports highlights, and even sometimes little skits. It was sent around on tape delay during home room periods. But that became my favorite class, because I was enjoying it so much."

"My high school experience was mainly behind-the-scenes, acting as a director and so on," Steele noted. "But my favorite part of it had been sports, so I decided I might as well pursue it, when I went forward with my college search. If you're going to spend your life working at something, you'd better enjoy it was my thought. "

But Steele did more than report sports among his high school media work, he also loved playing football.

"I was a backup lineman, and I wasn't great, but I enjoyed every minute of it," he said. "I played guard and tackle on the offensive line, and tackle and defensive end on defense.  I was mostly on the scout team, meaning the first stringers worked against us all week, and we impersonated that week's opponent. One of the really good players we had was Zach Triner, who's been the long snapper for several years now for Tampa Bay, and won a Super Bowl with them last year. I have Zach Triner to thank for my bad shoulder, so that's my claim to fame!"

"But we went to the championship game (Super Bowl) all four of my years at Marshfield, and won it in my senior year, so we had a lot of great players and played against some great teams," noted Steele. "I also ran track for a little bit, but soon realized I was not fast, and I much prefer team sports. So I became basically a year-round football guy, joined the weight room with Brendan Shea, and worked out all during the off-season. I still see him whenever I go home and hit the gym. But football really obsessed me, from the schools to the NFL. My dad had played in high school and semi pro, and he's a huge fan too, so we're a football family."

In between his football seasons, Steele was working a variety of chores for the Marshfield High media programs, and it was at one event that his future career took another fateful turn.

"I was covering a girls basketball game, and it was on WATD radio," Steele recalled. "When the game ended and we were all walking out, I went up and introduced myself to (then-WATD Sports Director) Bill Wilhelm. Right on the spot, he offered me an internship at the station. For the next two-and-a-half years I was an intern for their Sunday night Sports Exchange program, which really built my appetite for the profession, working behind the scenes.

In fact, I got my first-ever paycheck for media work from them, after someone was off over Christmas, and they had me fill in on-air. So I am eternally grateful to Mr. Wilhelm and all those folks at WATD."

Steele was not the first person to think he was football-obsessed, and then to go to Texas, and be stunned. It didn't take him long on the job in Corpus Christi to realize all those stories about the Lone Star State's devotion to the gridiron were true.

"Oh, it's a whole new ballgame; high school football in Texas," Steele laughed. "Everything you've seen in books and movies is true. They have a whole different amount of appreciation and passion for the game. We have similar passion here and team bonding and so on, of course, but down there the teams are filling stadiums. The players are bigger and faster, in general, and the game is similar to ours, but what is really different is the size of the programs and their playing fields--they play on much bigger stages, every school literally has its own stadium."

But the Corpus Christi area offered the young journalist more than just potent high school football to cover. The Corpus Christi Hooks were developing ballplayers for the Houston Astros, and the Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Islanders provided college sports to cover as well.

"At that time I covered the Hooks in AA ball, most of the Astros you'd see winning the World Series a few years later, were still coming up through the system," Steele noted. "I had the chance to see Carlos Correa--the best baseball player I've even seen play, by the way--as well as guys like Alex Bregman, and Evan Gattis. There were also frequently big leaguers down doing rehab there, like pitcher Collin McHugh, who was with the Red Sox last year. But it was fun interviewing guys like that at a totally natural stage of their career, and then seeing them on the World Series stage a couple years later. I got to see hard work in the minors pays off."

When Bell retired and WLNE had the opening, Coit was already working there and knew Steele from their days at Emerson, where Coit was three years ahead of him, but there were several candidates and his hiring was no sure thing.

"It's funny how small the world really is," said Steele. "I had probably been involved in 100 different activities at Emerson, and just dove in head-first and swam the best I could. Hopefully I had improved a lot by the time I graduated, but the college had so many opportunities. It is a school full of passionate and committed people, but again you saw that hard work pays off. That's what I like about broadcasting; you have to learn how to be a member of a team, because it is just like a team sport.  I had done news reports there, and then they have you stand in front of a green screen and do weather reports, and later I did play-by-play. While I was there we started a sports network, and turned part of the gym into a studio. I worked a lot as a sports director, overseeing people and working behind the scenes. There were a ton of hiccups, but it was a learning experience. By the end of my time there, we were putting out pretty good product."

Getting the job at WLNE was a dream come true, and right down the road.

"Being able to drive up everyday and see my family, and to cover the teams I grew up watching is so much fun," said Steele. "And also being able to sit next to and work with someone I've known since college in Nick, is a very nice situation.

“I've been incredibly lucky. Long-time sports anchor Dan McReynolds retired in Corpus Christi, which is how I got that job. And then Ken Bell retired from Channel 6, which is how I could apply for this job. That's the only way these kind of jobs open up. There were a couple other candidates for WLNE, but I am grateful that the station's decision was to choose me. I'm also of course grateful to Nick, and we had stayed in touch through social media over the years after college, so I owe so much to him."

We mentioned that the only drawback to Steele's sports gig is that he won't have the Pawtucket Red Sox to follow, as WLNE had done so well through the years.  With the team in Worcester now, it's not quite such a local franchise.

"Nick and I just did a 30-minute special, 'Magic at McCoy,' looking back at all the special moments the PawSox had," Steele said. "We had Cal Ripken on talking about the longest game, and guys like Bronson Arroyo talking about their formative years there. It was just our way of saying goodbye to the team, which always fun to cover, and Pawtucket will really miss them."