Marc Cira: The International Sportsman

I had a chance to sit down with St. John's senior Marc Cira to talk about his love of sports, the career he hopes to pursue, and a look at sports through his unique international lens:

Q: You said you have a big interest in sports, doing some sort of work with sports. How much of that comes from the way you grew up? Is your family big into sports, or did you develop that sort of on your own?

A: We are, but I'm definitely the biggest. The only thing, like my brother and my dad taught me how to play baseball but me and my older brother always played and that got me into baseball pretty much when I was like four. And ever since then I've had a love of sports. At first, it was pretty much just baseball, but then like around 8, 10 years old I played golf, and then I started to watch golf, and football I got real big into. So, now, it's all sports.

Q: And when did you decide that you wanted to turn that into a career? At what point did a love for sports turn into, 'This is going to be my profession"?

A: I guess I never really thought about "career" until senior year of high school or going into college and deciding on a major. And I knew I enjoyed sports and I thought there was a potential for a career in either sports broadcasting or some kind of form of media. When I was going into college, to answer the question.

Q: Transitioning a little bit, you talked about studying abroad. Did that cement your career path, like you made sure you wanted to do that, or did it change things a little bit for you?

A: No, I don't think it changed things. It was kind of weird being away from watching. You know, like every day I'll pretty much watch a game from home. So for five, six months wasn't really able to do that. I tried to find some games on the computer. I remember going to bars trying to find the Super Bowl. Finally we found it in Rome. And it was kind of a weird feeling being away. I would check ESPN New York every day to see if anything happened or what happened with the Yankees the previous night. Even me and my roommate, we split the MLB package on our laptops and we watched the Yankees at like 3 in the morning in Ireland. It was, it was fun. But, do I think it cemented...? It didn't change anything.

Q: How is the sports culture different over there? Did you kind of begin to understand the differences between how they perceive sports, and here in America?

A: Yeah, for one thing it's soccer and football, football, they call it. And Ireland it's rugby and Irish football. They're really passionate about it but that's all they're passionate about, pretty much. I remember trying to find a baseball in Rome and Paris. Finally, we found one in Amsterdam. Just like one baseball at a souvenir shop and we used it to play catch. But, they're really passionate about, you know, soccer. But, unlike us, where we've got a bunch of different major sports and we love them all. For one thing, I do, you won't find it here. In Ireland, I was there on a Sunday just in a bar at like 4 in the afternoon and there was a couple women just sitting there watching a football game, drinking beers. You'll never find that here. And it was, it was funny to see.

Listen to the audio here: