Mike Pesca
Mike Pesca first reached the airwaves as a 10-year-old caller to a New York Jets-themed radio show and has since been able to parlay his interests in sports coverage as a National Desk correspondent for NPR based in New York City.
Pesca enjoys training his microphone on anything that occurs at a track, arena, stadium, park, fronton, velodrome or air strip (i.e. the plane drag during the World's Strongest Man competition). He has reported from Los Angeles, Cleveland and Gary. He has also interviewed former Los Angeles Ram Cleveland Gary. Pesca is a panelist on the weekly Slate podcast "Hang up and Listen".
In 1997, Pesca began his work in radio as a producer at WNYC. He worked on the NPR and WNYC program On The Media. Later he became the New York correspondent for NPR's midday newsmagazine Day to Day, a job that has brought him to the campaign trail, political conventions, hurricane zones and the Manolo Blahnik shoe sale. Pesca was the first NPR reporter to have his own podcast, a weekly look at gambling cleverly titled "On Gambling with Mike Pesca."
Pesca, whose writing has appeared in Slate and The Washington Post, is the winner of two Edward R. Murrow awards for radio reporting and, in1993, was named Emory University Softball Official of the Year.
He lives in Manhattan with his wife Robin, sons Milo and Emmett and their dog Rumsfeld. A believer in full disclosure, Pesca rates his favorite teams as the Jets, Mets, St. Johns Red Storm and Knicks, teams he has covered fairly and without favor despite the fact that they have given him a combined one championship during his lifetime as a fully cognizant human.
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Ahead of Sunday's Super Bowl XLVIII, NPR's Mike Pesca dams up the river of hype to create a cool lagoon of Super Bowl reason. -
The play Fetch Clay, Make Man explores the sense of identity through the eyes of two significant figures in black history — Stepin Fetchit (Lincoln Perry) and Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali). -
By the standard of normal golfing mortals, Tiger Woods has had an incredible summer. He's won multiple tournaments and millions of dollars in prize money. What he didn't do was win any of golf's four major championships. And those major wins are his measure of success. -
Syracuse is the only college team that relies exclusively on a 2-3 zone defense. They've been unstoppable so far in the NCAA men's basketball tournament, but on Saturday night, Michigan will try to break through Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim's winning strategy. -
The basketball tactic isn't officially tracked. There isn't even a universal definition (it can occur when a defensive player in any way redirects the intended flight of the ball). But University of Louisville coach Rick Pitino knows deflections are key to winning. -
Put down that chicken wing and put in your two cents. Fake your way at least well into the third quarter, when everyone else at your party Sunday is well into their Bud Lights. -
The gifted quarterback can run and pocket pass, skills that helped him lead the San Francisco 49ers to the Super Bowl. But what will it take for the Baltimore Ravens to stop — or at least slow down — Kaepernick on Sunday?
