He’s a popular radio announcer on the South Coast.
But, for two decades he’s moonlighted as an X-Games and Olympics announcer, and Brad Jay is currently in South Korea working the 2018 Winter Olympics.
It’s the fifth Olympics for Jay. He’s known locally for his years in Santa Barbara County as a DJ at KJEE in Santa Barbara, and for the last few years as the evening host at KTYD radio. In fact, he is hosting his KTYD show from the South Korean games.
Jay says working as an announcer at the venues is easier than you might think. He knows most of the competitors personally from his years as being the announcer at events in the U-S. But, he still spends hours every night studying to make sure he’s fully prepared for the next day of action.
Leading up to this year’s games, there were a lot of security concerns because of tension between North and South Korea. But, Jay says people raise the security issue about every Olympics, and he says the atmosphere has been great, and the South Korean people incredibly welcoming.
Jay is trying to share his behind the scenes view of the Olympics with people here at home, via a YouTube channel, TameYourTalent.
He says he dreamed of competing in the Olympics as a skier or snowboarder, but didn’t have the skills. Jay says getting to take part in the Olympics in this way is amazing, because he gets to not only have a front row seat to history, but to have a part in it.
Jay is in South Korea for three weeks as a part of the games. He’ll then come home for a week, but then return to South Korea to be an announcer for the Paralympics.
