For much of Brian Petrotta’s early career, he was always on the move, never staying in one place for too long.

Petrotta spent five years making stops across the country, working with the Vero Beach Dodgers, the Ogden Raptors, the Michigan Battle Cats and the Idaho Falls Braves. He also served as the as sports information director at Stenson University, in DeLand, Fla. 

Now, Petrotta is the voice of Shocker women’s basketball and the assistant director of media relations. He produces game notes, coordinates interviews, hosts a weekly radio show with women’s basketball coach Jody Adams, and works with the Wichita State athletics website.

“There’s never been a day where I’ve come to work and said ‘I don’t have anything to do,’” Petrotta said.

Petrotta’s interest in sports started as a boy in Sterling, Kan., where he spent his days playing baseball and listening to Denny Matthews call a Kansas City Royals game while falling asleep.

“That’s probably where the love affair started. I was a Royals fan and to be able to fall asleep listening to those broadcasts was highly influential,” he said.

And Petrotta fondly remembers his uncle, Ralph Lawler, who does radio play-by-play for the Los Angeles Clippers.

The two became pen pals shortly after the Clippers drafted Danny Manning out of the University of Kansas. That was before email, so Lawler used to type his letters to him and sign them and physically mail them.

During a Christmas break, he finally got the chance to fly out to Los Angeles and meet his uncle and spend some time with the team and go to games.

He could barley contain his excitement as a young, wide-eyed teenager walking around the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena looking at players like Danny Manning up close.

“I remember a Christmas Day game between the Lakers and Clippers when Magic Johnson was still playing for the Lakers and Danny Manning was guarding Magic and that was the greatest thing I’ve ever seen,” he said.

Petrotta got to learn a lot about his radio broadcasting, how to prepare and how to interact with the players and the coaches and he credits that experience to his uncle.

“I saw how much he enjoyed what he did and how much he put into it and how much he got out of it and that is something that sticks with you right away. When you see someone that is passionate about what they do, if you can feel a part of that it makes you feel pretty good about what you’re doing,” he said.

But Petrotta didn’t decide to pursue radio broadcasting until he was a student at the University of Kansas. 

It was there he met another one of his instructors, Tom Hedrick.

Petrotta remembers Hendrick as a mentor who made him sit in the bleachers during high school football games with a tape recorder and do play-by-play as if he were sitting in a broadcast booth.

The first time he did it didn’t go over so well.

“It wasn’t pretty. I don’t think I have that tape any longer and I hope no one else does. It is a strange feeling to take a tape recorder in the stands sitting next to a mom and dad broadcasting a game with nothing more than a roster in front of you and some stats you got out of a newspaper,” he said.

That experience taught Petrotta how to be a self-critic listening to his own broadcast tapes.

“I’ve listened to my tapes for 15 years and it’s still a necessary part of what I do,” he said.

Petrotta decided early on that he wanted to announce minor league baseball while calling high school sports in Dodge City after college.

So he applied for the job with the Idaho Falls Braves, an affiliate of the San Diego Padres.

The organization got his tape and liked it enough to call him in and talk. They hired him to do play-by-play for road games.

“I was absolutely thrilled. It wasn’t a dream of mine to be in Idaho, but it was to work baseball,” he said.

That job was the beginning of many others, each presenting a bigger opportunity.

“The next year there was a team in Utah that had an opening for the full season, 76 games instead of 38, so I jumped at that opportunity,” he said.

“Then, I ended up in Vero Beach, Florida, and it was 140 games. So it’s always looking to move up.”