Some people are lucky enough to land a dream job. Steve Baker had two.
Baker, 64, worked 20 years at Oxford’s legendary WOXY-FM, the beloved “Future of Rock and Roll” station known to most as 97X.
Then in 2001, he was hired by Miami University as director of broadcasting, where he did play-by-play or supervised more than 2,000 broadcast productions for football, basketball, baseball, softball, hockey, volleyball and swimming.
“I count myself as one of the luckiest men on the planet who has an amazing family and have had the opportunity to work in two dream jobs — 20 years at ‘97X, The Future of Rock and Roll,’ and 23 years at Miami University,” Baker says.
He’s leaving his 9-to-5 Miami job at the end of June because, frequently, it wasn’t a 9-to-5 job. During the football and basketball seasons — more than half a year — he’d work “70, 80 or 90 hours a week putting things together,” he says. Top on his retirement checklist is treatment for his back that makes it difficult to stand for long period, and sometimes causes him to lose his balance while walking.
“The back pain that has plagued me recently has come back, and doesn’t seem willing to go away,” says Baker, who is also a Miami assistant athletic director.
The 1977 graduate of Brookville (Ind.) High School enrolled in Miami to become a music teacher. He was working part-time at the Oxford Burger King in 1978 and got to know many staffers at WOXY-FM, which then was located beneath the fast food joint. Soon owner Rick Stone hired him.
“I was on the air for a few years, and then began moving around,” he says. He did Top 40, adult contemporary, beautiful music and country formats for stations in Bedford, Ind., Crewe, Va., Hamilton’s WMOH-AM, Richmond, Ind., and Dade City, Fla., before returning to Oxford in 1984.
Baker had no rock music on his resume when he sent a tape in 1984 to WOXY-FM. Owners Doug and Linda Balogh liked his voice and hired him.
“They gave me the opportunity to do everything I wanted in radio,” he says. “I love them like my parents. I was a DJ and production manager. I wired the studios. I did a little sales and was station manager. Among my other duties, I began working Miami broadcasts as the pregame, halftime and postgame host as well as engineer for Miami football and basketball broadcasts. I eventually worked as color analyst and fill-in play by play and then named Voice of Miami.”
He lost his Voice of Miami gig in 1997, when the university started its own network which did not include 97X. Four years later, the university job opened and Baker was named Miami’s broadcasting director and resumed play-by-play duties. He worked two jobs — at Miami and WOXY-FM — until the Baloghs sold the radio station in 2004.
The play-by-play job — which he’ll continue this fall for rights holder Van Wager Sports and Entertainment — was only a small part of Baker’s job at Miami.
“Throughout my career I've had to learn video production and editing, and television production, on the fly,” he says. “Despite being a ‘radio only’ guy, in the early 2000s we started to produce video for online presentation. A few years later we started online streaming of some sports on our website. Nine years ago we built a television production trailer and began putting broadcasts on ESPN3/ESPN+.”
Baker oversaw video installations in three locations: Miami’s first remote production trailer; a production studio for football telecasts in Yager Stadium; and a TriCaster video system to direct hockey telecasts at Goggin Ice Center.
“One of my proudest accomplishments through the years was to never stop learning. When we got into video, I knew nothing about it. I’m proud to say I can pretty much operate everything in the studio,” he says.
After six years of classes, Baker finally earned an associate degree in Humanities in 2019, while one of his two daughters attended Miami. He relished his role as mentor and on-the-job teacher to former students who are broadcasting directors at four Mid-American Conference universities, several play-by-play TV or radio announcers, sideline reporters and TV sports reporters.
“Those people, as well as the consistent top quality of our broadcasts, are the legacy that I'll leave at Miami,” he says.
As broadcasting director, he also worked with “all the guys who have statues in the Cradle of Coaches” in the east end of Yager Stadium.
“To be part of what they contributed to Miami University has been very special,” he says.
