Photo Courtesy from Donovan Gibbs
From being an editor, commentator and podcast co-host, fourth-year Long Island University journalism student, Donovan Gibbs reflects on his journalism career and translating it to post-graduation.
Besides using his voice, Gibbs served as a Sports Editor for LIU’s Post newspaper, The Tide, a Digital and Editorial Intern for Listen In With KNN and now a Web Content Editor writing about the Baltimore Ravens.
He first came to LIU in 2022 aspiring to be a sports journalist while being part of the LIU Sharks football team roster as a center.
“I’ve been able to really live kind of a double life as an athlete and as a guy that covers athletes,” Gibbs said. “It’s been days where I have practiced in the morning and then interviewed an athlete for a different sport here in my school.”
However, Gibbs’ passion for sports journalism started at an early age.
“I’m used to just seeing guys talk about sports all day and they grew my knowledge on what I really wanted to do,” Gibbs said. “I really wanted to be a guy that was on TV to argue and just debate about the game that I grew to love.”
His passion later expanded in announcing games, growing up listening to play-by-play FOX Sports announcer, Gus Johnson and others.
“I grew up watching guys such as Gus Johnson, Kevin Harlan and Ian Eagle,” Gibbs said. “And I always wanted to be like them, be able to be the voice behind such incredible moments throughout this entire season, especially for LIU basketball.”
The New York native started covering LIU’s basketball team in 2024, serving as the color commentator and a camera operator.
He faced challenges earlier on due to different campus locations as a football player, making it difficult to manage the time to juggle multiple tasks.
“Trying to make that commute during my first couple of years here wasn’t possible, primarily because I would have practice the next morning,” Gibbs said. “I would be up at 5 a.m. and I would get back to Long Island at around 10 a.m. or 11 a.m.”
Later during his time at LIU, his schedule became more clear to pursue his goals.
When it comes to announcing, he said reps were key for him to be proficient, having commentated on multiple sports, including baseball and hockey.
“I’ve had reps throughout my time, throughout my career at LIU, and I just know I got to keep building off of it and my number one thing is I want to listen to a broadcast after and come away with knowing that I did more good than that,” Gibbs said.
Furthermore, he credits Travis Demers, the play-by-play radio announcer for the Portland Trailblazers on helping him prepare in different parts of commentating.
He learned several aspects such as drawing a spotting board which is used as a reference sheet to identify players, statistics and storylines.
Gibbs also emphasized on the importance of preparation for announcing games from knowing team rosters, pronouncing player’s names correctly and overall knowledge of teams.
“You need to be able to know how to describe the court where a player is currently at, what the movements are, because doing it on radio is different than doing it on TV,” Gibbs said. “As you see on TV, the guys aren’t commenting on where the players are currently on the court because you can see with your own eyes.”
Throughout the start of his career, Gibbs recalls the 2026 NEC Men’s Basketball Championship being the most memorable games he has called.
He witnessed a program from having a 3-26 record in the 2022-23 season to becoming NEC Champions, taking down the Mercyhurst Lakers, 79-70.
“It was between an LIU team that already had the automatic qualifier due to winning in the semifinal round against Wagner going up against a team in Mercyhurst that just came up to Division I this year,” Gibbs said.
Gibbs called it a moment he will forever remember and being the voice behind it.
However, he further expanded on his journalism career by becoming co-host for Sports Shark Tank, a sports debate show for LIU’s radio station that releases episodes on the weekdays on station 88.1FM WCWP.
The show covers athletes around campus, but also features notable alumni like ESPN analyst Alan Hahn and MLB Network broadcast associate Nicolas Wilkerson and covers professional sporting events that includes the World Series and the 2026 World Baseball Classic.
While being co-host, he gained insight on learning how to speak on the radio, interview people on the radio and to be conversational.
“It gives people a reason to listen to me speak,” Gibbs said. “I have information and I have, I would say, the credibility to my name to have a well versed opinion that can be heard by the masses.”
From starting with 50 listeners per month to now 300 listeners on Spotify, primarily due to being active on social platforms.
“And a lot of people, whether they’re happy with what we said and not happy with what we said, we tell them to listen to the full thing,” Gibbs said. “You want to hear the full take and want to get the full context behind why he says certain things and listen to it.”
Gibbs believes having access to platforms brings in viewerships in audiences tuning into content while staying original to yourself.
“It creates more community and it creates more communication with that viewer base that you are trying to achieve,” Gibbs said.
However, it was not easy for Gibbs and the crew to build up where they are now with the show.
Gibbs added that he and other students previously had to work out of a student lounge before having a radio station building on campus describing it as an office meeting room.
“It was very compact, not a lot of space, but we had to put a lot of effort and put a lot of our dreams into everything,” Gibbs said. “So seeing that we’ve been able to have the hard work payoff so far, has been nothing short of amazing.”
With his experiences, he credits to having a good community of people to help him build his career and growing his passion for sports journalism.
He added his experience with FOX Sports Radio WHAP and the connections he made brought him valuable experiences being involved with radio.
“Being able to have those credentials of talking to people during my time at the internship, it has helped a lot with my takes on the radio because it gives me credentials and gives me the reason to speak,” Gibbs said.
