Matthew Gelhard’s dream of being a journalist and broadcaster started at a young age. 

He watched his favorite sports team, the Washington Nationals, and admired the work of the production team of broadcasters, Bob Carpenter and F.P Santiago. 

The journalist he most admired was reporter Dan Kolko who wrote articles about the Nationals, interviewed players after every game and sat in the dugout with the team.

“They [the Nationals] created such a great experience for me. It really made me want to create a platform for myself for people to enjoy,” said Gelhard.

Gelhard started his journalistic career as a Journalism student at Linganore High School (LHS) in his junior and senior years. 

He graduated from Linganore in 2019 and committed to play baseball for Penn State Mont Alto where he majored in Business and minored in Broadcast Journalism and Sports Studies. 

When Gelhard was forced to end his college baseball career at the Branch campus in order to go to the main campus to finish his degree, he realized that even if his baseball career at the collegiate level was over, his love of sports did not need to end.

Gelhards’s first major opportunity as a journalist was offered by one of his colleagues at Penn State who invited him to come and write articles for the Associated Press (AP). One of the articles he wrote for the AP was on the Little League World Series. 

It was viewed by millions and spread through many different news outlets including Fox 17, the Houston Chronicle and Theday.com.

 Gelhard spoke about his renewed focus after transferring to the Penn State main campus.

”I was able to be a broadcaster for men’s and women’s basketball and eventually baseball as well,” said Gelhard.

Gelhard went on to work toward mastering his interviewing skills too. He interviewed the head quarterback for Penn State football, Sean Clifford, about his company. 

Clifford’s company, Limitless, helps student-athletes like Clifford make name, image and likeness (NIL) deals, which are collaboration deals college athletes make with brands and companies. 

As a collegiate journalist, Gelhard also conducts interviews for “In The Game,” interviewing local high school athletes about their personal stories and recording them in action.

Presently, Gelhard is working on many different projects. These include covering multiple different sports, working the camera on the field, and working for the Penn State media team on multiple episodes of “In The Game” and Penn State COMM radio. 

He even has plans this summer to go to New Zealand for the FIFA Women’s World Cup where he will interview and write articles for Penn State media.

“I think Penn State has put together a lot of great professors and a lot of experienced journalists, as well as … the right equipment to [help student journalists] succeed,” said Gelhard.

Gelhard went into high school not truly knowing what he wanted to do, but when he joined Journalism, he fell in love with it. He now plans to continue doing what he loves as a journalist for his college and to make his career as a broadcaster.