Congratulations, Class of 2023!
Featured Speaker: Jim Rome
As the host of one of the nation’s most popular sports talk radio shows, Jim Rome is best known for his aggressive and informed dialogue. Rome’s daily sports radio show, “The Jim Rome Show,” (also known as “The Jungle“), is nationally syndicated on CBS Sports radio and boasts over 2.5 million listeners.
Rome started his radio career as the sports director at college radio station KCSB-FM while attending the University of California, Santa Barbara. After graduating from UCSB, Rome moved to San Diego to work for an all-sports radio station, XTRA Sports 690, where he developed his “smack” talk style. This type of sports talk proved to be very popular and garnered high ratings for the station as well as a loyal audience. Rome continued to hone his “smack” talk with “The Jim Rome Show” in 1990 and was picked up by Premiere Radio Networks for national syndication in 1996.
In addition to his radio career, Rome hosted “Jim Rome is Burning,” a daily provocative sports talk show on ESPN that featured top sports stories, interviews with athletes, coaches, sports journalists and celebrities and Rome’s final takes on the day’s top stories. He has also made cameo appearances in Two For The Money, The Longest Yard and Space Jam.
Jim currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Janet, and has two sons, one of which is a spring 2023 graduate of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication.