Robert shining light on local athletes

By Desmond Bernal
Posted 3/28/17

Ron Robert is trying to open a gateway for current and future athletes in Rhode Island. He has created his own radio show called “High School Sports Wrap with Ron Robert” on WNRI

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Robert shining light on local athletes

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Ron Robert is trying to open a gateway for current and future athletes in Rhode Island. He has created his own radio show called “High School Sports Wrap with Ron Robert” on WNRI, which can be tuned in on 1380am or 95.1fm. Also, it can be accessed on WNRI’s website WNRI.com or download the simply radio app which is available free on any android or apple device. The first show aired on the radio on Feb. 7, 2017, so the show is fairly new, but in two months it is receiving a plethora of good reviews.

“I always wanted to do something like this and I had a great passion for sports,” Robert said on why he started the show.

Robert has three sons, and had the pleasure to coach all three of them. This helps Robert because he was able to connect with different coaches he knew from his time coaching his sons, some of whom became high school coaches. All these different outlets give him more news and updates for his radio show.

Robert has many different players and coaches come on his show. His first guest he had on the show was Hendricken football star Kwity Paye. He had a bunch of other high schools on the show like Cranston West, La Salle Academy, Mount Saint Charles and many more.

“This is great for the show because these well-known high schools bring in a great amount of audience,” Robert said.

He even brings on local teams like the Cranston League for Cranston’s Future (CLCF) football team that went down to Florida to compete at nationals.

On the show, Robert does a segment just for youth sports and calls it RI futures. During this segment, Robert talks about a certain athlete in a sport and his or her achievements in a certain league and then how he or she might make out going to the high school level of play. He will also bring the coach of that athlete on the show and ask the coach some questions.

In another segment on the show, Robert brings on a physical trainer and they discuss the right way to strengthen an athlete’s core and other exercises athletes should be doing. Also, they talk about ways from preventing athletes from blowing out something in their body, whether it be the athlete’s leg, knee or arm.

Robert has received great feedback about the show, mostly coming from parents of the athletes because they like to hear their son’s name on the radio and to hear about sports in Rhode Island.

“Parents were extremely happy with what I was doing and were giving me a ton of support,” Robert said.

Being from Rhode Island, Robert knew the difficulty for athletes to be recruited from college coaches all over.

“Rhode Island is the most under-recruited state and I wanted to express some of the great talent we actually have,” Robert said.

Right now, there are not a lot of listeners on the show, ranging from 400-1,500 listeners, which is good for a start. Robert is thinking about featuring a Facebook live option as well to gain more of an audience than just the ones that listen on the radio.

The next big show coming up is going to be with all the athletic directors around the state. Robert is getting some help from the Cranston West athletic director, Vincent Varrecchione, with getting all the athletic directors together. On air, they are going to talk about all the challenges that come up in all the different sports, like getting the money for jerseys and equipment, in addition to having money to pay the referees or umpires for the games.

Robert has even done some charitable works with his show. He invited the coach of the CLCF lacrosse team because he had a player who was having trouble walking, and the coach started talking about the athlete and how he got diagnosed with this undisclosed illness. After this, people started putting money into a go-fund-me account they had set up to raise enough money for a wheelchair for the athlete.

Robert plans on continuing the show and has no signs of ending soon. Robert is already booked up with a lot people wanting to come on the show and talk with him.

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