Smyrna: Paradise is Burning

Professor Mike Damergis brings over 30 years of broadcasting experience to the department as a sports producer, reporter and author.

Mike launched the graduate program in Sports Communication & Media in 2017. This popular "hands-on" program allows students to train and work directly with ESPN+ including the D-1 MAAC coverage of our championship basketball teams as well as all other Iona sports teams.

Prof. Damergis remains active in the industry as a freelance in-game radio producer for the NFL and is a digital consultant for SportsGrid Radio.

In fall 2018, Prof. Damergis led a team of faculty and students in hosting and producing the “Iona College Radio Hour” on WVOX in New Rochelle.

Prof. Damergis produced and anchored “Baseball This Morning” on Sirius-XM from 2006 through 2010 and was instrumental in launching the first-ever Fantasy Sports Radio channel. His career includes serving as the radio game-day producer for the New York Giants in 2004 and 2009. He also was a sports talk show producer for WFAN, Fox Sports Radio in Los Angeles and The Fan 590 in Toronto.

Mike was nominated for “Best Video of the Year” in 2014 by the Fantasy Writers Association and won Adviser of the Year for WICR in 2015 at Iona College.

His 2007 interview with former third baseman Carney Lansford was cited in K. Adam Powell's book “Lyman Bostock: The Inspiring Life and Tragic Death of a Ball Player.”

Although covering sports is his background, Mike is in the process of producing a mini-documentary about the 1922 burning of Smyrna, where hundreds-of-thousands of Orthodox Christians lost their homes and lives in post-World War I Asia Minor.

Prof. Damergis’s two-part interview with former WFAN morning show host Craig Carton has over 100,000 hits on YouTube. For a full list of his interviews, visit www.Mad-Sports.com.