Name Cyrus Saatsaz | Education Amador Valley High School | |
Cyrus Saatsaz is an instructor in the Journalism & Media Studies department at San Diego State University, the host of WaXed a surf talk show radio show that aired on ESPN 1700 in Southern California, is the author of Dogwild & Board: Stories, Interviews and Musings from a Surf Journalist, and is a writer for The Huffington Post. Saatsaz was an editor with USA Today for nine years. Saatsaz hosted and was Editor-in-Chief of The Extreme Scene, the world's first action sports radio talk show. In addition to writing for The Huffington Post, Saatsaz is an award winning journalist, having been published in newspapers, magazines, books and websites including the San Francisco Chronicle and its official website SFGate.com, USA Today, AOL.com, Future Snowboarding Magazine, Fuel.TV, The Great Book of San Francisco/Bay Area Sports Lists, and many more. Saatsaz is the founder of a surf shop/bookstore/art gallery in San Francisco called San Francisco Surf Company. Saatsaz also worked for KNBR 680/1050 in San Francisco and The Mighty 1090 and ESPN 1700 in San Diego for 14 years, serving as a sports anchor, host, Creative Director and Executive Producer.
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Early life
Saatsaz was born in Novato, CA and subsequently moved to Fremont, CA, then Newark, CA before his parents divorced. Saatsaz moved with his mother to San Ramon, CA, attending California High School and briefly playing on the basketball and tennis teams. Saatsaz left after his sophomore year to live with his father in Pleasanton, CA, where he graduated from Amador Valley High School. It is here that he first began experimenting with broadcasting, handling the morning news anchor duties on the school's PA system in addition to announcing school basketball and baseball games. Saatsaz has said on his radio show that his high school experience was miserable because half the population was Mormon and the atmosphere there was too conservative and sheltered, citing his experience of being let go from anchoring the morning news on the school's PA system as an example. One morning, Saatsaz opened his daily morning news segment on the PA system with the song "Loser" by Beck and was dismissed because the school's Mormon administration thought the song would incite thoughts of suicide amongst students.
Saatsaz attended numerous colleges. He spent nearly two years at Humboldt State University, joining the Delta Sigma Phi fraternity and was a midfielder for the Humboldt State Lumberjacks lacrosse team. Saatsaz then transferred to Cuesta College, where he was Program Director for campus radio station KGUR. Saatsaz was accepted to California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, CA but decided to transfer to San Francisco State University, feeling that he would have a better chance at getting his foot in the door of a media company in San Francisco. Saatsaz graduated with a Media Management and Law emphasis.
Career
While a student at San Francisco State, Saatsaz was hired by KNBR as a programming intern. Saatsaz quickly impressed management, and immediately after graduating college was hired full-time, first as producer for The Razor and Mr. T and a short time later was promoted to Executive Producer for The Rick Barry Show. It was during this time that Saatsaz began his on-air career, being brought on for various bits and special segments.
During this time, Saatsaz thought up the idea of an action sports radio talk show, and together with an old friend and roommate from San Luis Obispo, Steve Blankenship (who had previous experience as a pro snowboarder), they created The Extreme Scene, which debuted on KNBR 1050 in August 2003. Their first guest was Kelly Slater, who came in-studio to promote his book Pipe Dreams. Former KNBR producer Tony Rhein was originally part of the show, but backed out last minute because he didn't want to sacrifice time from playing music.
A short time after the debut of The Extreme Scene, Saatsaz was asked by KNBR management to write a blog on the station's website about action sports. The blog quickly drew a following, and even drew the ire of skier Jonny Moseley, who was called "Jonny Sellout" in one of Saatsaz's blogs because an event Moseley was hosting called ICER AIR decided to start charging people for attendance. The two quickly resolved their differences, and Moseley has come on his radio show many times since then.
Saatsaz's blog also drew the attention of action sports industry editors, including an action sports website started by AOL called Lat34.com. As a freelance writer, Saatsaz conducted exclusive interviews with big name athletes like Tony Hawk. Saatsaz wrote for the site for a year and was promoted to Senior Editor before joining Fuel.TV as a writer, where his stories drew the highest amount of traffic on the site. During this time, Saatsaz was also hired to write stories for Future Snowboarding Magazine. Saatsaz eventually left Fuel.TV and was hired by USA Today's action sports website BNQT, where his stories once again drew the website's highest traffic numbers.
The John London Not Just Sports Show was cancelled after three years, but Saatsaz was kept on by KNBR as a Senior Producer and was promoted to Creative Director in March 2007. During this time Saatsaz became KNBR's main fill-in sports anchor, in addition to filling in as host of Sportsphone 680. After eight years and four months with the station, Saatsaz and KNBR mutually parted ways due to creative and philosophical differences on April 30, 2009.
Saatsaz founded a surf shop/bookstore/art gallery in San Francisco called San Francisco Surf Company, writes columns for The Huffington Post, wrote for the San Francisco Chronicle, SFGate.com, and USA Today, authored a book called Dogwild & Board: Stories, Interviews and Musings from a Surf Journalist and hosted various nationally syndicated action sports radio talk shows including The Extreme Scene and WaXed.