‘Sizzle’ factor: Why Matt Chazanow feels like right fit as NC State’s next broadcaster

Matt Chazanow, the new voice of the N.C. State Wolfpack, can trace his passion for sports broadcasting back to an infamous UNC upset.

A 14-year-old Chazanow was watching No. 14 seed Weber State play No. 3 seed North Carolina in the 1999 NCAA tournament. The underdogs were winning when, suddenly, his mother enforced his bedtime.

But, Chazanow had a little red radio and earpiece, allowing him to stay up late and take in the magic.

“I was listening to that game just locked in, like sweating,” Chazanow said, “Just excited.”

His parents, both Ivy League graduates, had careers in archaeology and English. His mother, Sydne Marshall, still isn’t sure where her son’s passion for sports came from. Best she can tell, “this is just organically within him.”

Twenty-five years later, the 39-year-old whose passion was sparked by that red transistor is now taking over for Gary Hahn — the institutional, and at times controversial, broadcaster who spent 34 seasons with the Wolfpack.

Chazanow said he isn’t trying to replace Hahn. Rather, his goal is the same as it’s always been. He just wants to be “that guy for some other kid somewhere listening.”

“That has never been lost on me,” Chazanow said.

Originally from Westfield, New Jersey, Chazanow graduated from the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse in 2006. He began his career in North Carolina as the play-by-play announcer for High Point women’s basketball and, fittingly, called his first game in Reynolds Coliseum as HPU faced Kay Yow and the Wolfpack.

Chazanow joins the Wolfpack after serving as Director of Broadcast Operations for Learfield at Washington State University, where he was the voice of Cougar football, basketball and baseball.

Former athletic director Bill Moos said Chazanow was part of an overall rebranding at WSU.

“We needed some sizzle, I felt, in our broadcast,” Moos said. “I saw that potential in Matt Chazanow and it didn’t take long after his arrival that it was confirmed that he was the right guy.”

When Chazanow joined WSU in 2015, he was filling the shoes of Hall of Famer Bob Robertson, who had called Washington State football for more than 50 years.

“He handled that with as much grace as anybody possibly could,” Alex Brink, WSU football radio analyst, said. “And a lot of that was his genuine nature — his ability to very genuinely appreciate the history and the people around him.”

Now, as Chazanow prepares to take over for another legend in Hahn at N.C. State, he feels a “great deal” of pressure.

But, to him, “pressure means the work matters.” Pressure means you prepare. And there’s nothing Chazanow finds more offensive than showing up for a call unprepared.

“He’s such a nerd that he would go back and listen to things to make sure he got it right,” Jessamyn McIntyre, a sideline reporter for WSU and former coworker of Chazanow, said, “And, I mean, I say that jokingly, but he is so dedicated to his work that it shows.”

Chazanow’s detail-oriented approach is aligned with his mission: to be of service to his audience and a trusted storyteller.

If a fan is talking about the game itself, and not the broadcast, Chazanow considers that a win. It’s an even greater honor when listeners mute their TV to instead listen to his radio broadcast.

“I hope to take them to that place,” Chazanow said, “so they can feel [the game] both intellectually in terms of what’s going on, the nuts and bolts, but also emotionally.”

When asked, Chazanow couldn’t say why he was chosen out of more than 150 applicants for the position N.C. State. He doesn’t fully know the answer.

But this much is certain: The application committee saw his tape. They heard his work, and, through that, they felt his passion.

It’s the “sizzle” as Moos might put it. Or, as McIntyre is fond of saying, Chazanow’s “got the pipes.”

Look no further than his call of WSU men’s basketball’s upset over Arizona in February.

“It was pretty special what he did,” WSU color analyst Craig Ehlo said. “He’s gonna make some great calls for the Wolfpack for sure.”

So, while Chazanow may be reluctant to offer a self-scouting report, his former coworkers aren’t. They touted hard work, community involvement, and above all, his energy.

It’s the same fervor that filled him with so much excitement as a kid, when he sat by that little red radio. And now, if he’s lucky, Chazanow can be that voice for somebody else.