Christian Fauria guides his Bryant College sports media students on a Super Bowl field trip to Radio Row

SAN FRANCISCO — Christian Fauria has distinct experience navigating the chaos and hype of a Super Bowl from a couple of different perspectives.

Four of his 13 seasons as an NFL tight end were spent with the Patriots, where he was part of their back-to-back championships in 2003-04.

In his second career in sports media, which included a run as a weekday host at WEEI from May 2014 to August 2024, he experienced it from Radio Row, a noisy maelstrom of sports radio programs, podcasts, TV shows, and relentless product promotion in the week leading up to the Super Bowl that is crammed into a large convention center that somehow is not nearly large enough.

The latter, as anyone with a shred of common sense surely would guess, was considerably less satisfying than the former.

“I actually grew to hate the Super Bowl experience, Radio Row, all of that,” said Fauria. “Everybody wants to get in the party. Everybody wants a ticket. The traffic is a nightmare. You can’t get reservations anywhere. It was just too much in a few different ways.”

And yet here he is, back at the Super Bowl LX media headquarters at San Francisco’s Moscone Center West, and for a very cool reason. In his burgeoning new career teaching sports media at Bryant University, Fauria is doing something most dedicated teachers do: he’s putting what’s best for his students above his own preferences.

Fauria, whose official title in Smithfield, R.I., is “professional-in-residence” — department chair Chris Morse says, “You can call him Professor Fauria. He loves that.” — has brought 10 of his students to San Francisco and Radio Row this week to gain what Morse calls experiential education, a priority at Bryant.

The students are producing their three radio shows — which stream on WJMF.bryant.edu and BryantSportsIndustries on YouTube — live from Radio Row. “The class is called Advanced Sports Broadcasting,’’ said Fauria, “but I call it ‘Bryant goes to the Super Bowl.’

“I figured, ‘Well, if we’re going to be in this space and were going to compete with some of the bigger universities and their broadcasting schools, we need to stand out and show why we’re special and why we’re different.’ How do we do that? We raise money [in this case, through a fundraiser] and go to Radio Row. Because that’s where everybody is.”

Fauria, who started teaching at Bryant last spring, has a history in media that dates to well before his time at WEEI.

“When I got fired from WEEI in August 2024, I wanted to do something different. The only thing I know better than football, quite frankly, is broadcasting. I worked for well-known L.A. sports anchor Fred Roggin back in NBC in Los Angeles right out of high school. I was his intern. I was 18 years old. I don’t think he remembered me until I prank called him for a bit at WEEI back in 2018. He was not amused.”

Such hijinks were part of Fauria’s easygoing on-air persona. Perhaps WEEI listeners who remember the running joke that he was easily distracted, like a dog spotting a squirrel, would be surprised at his career pivot into education.

But he is serious about this. He connected with Bryant before last spring after writing up a 16-week syllabus for an advanced sports broadcasting course, which he sent to eight schools in the Northeast. Only Harvard did not respond.

Morse, the department chair, was intrigued, and through several conversations helped Fauria shape his role and curriculum.

“Christian kind of fell into our lap,” said Morse. “He was looking for a change of pace, to be something like more of a coach or mentor, and we were looking for somebody who was connected. We kind of came up with the idea that we need to get students that extra knowledge from someone who has experienced it.”

Fauria’s class this year developed their three shows — titled “No Huddle,” “The Four Wise Men,” and “Beyond The Row” — beginning in September. Fauria used his NFL contacts to get a spot on Radio Row as the culmination to their hard work. Bryant’s setup is situated near Ithaca College, Marist, Syracuse, and other schools with more established broadcasting programs.

It’s company the Bryant students immediately prove they belong in. “No Huddle” hosts Aurora Pedwell, Chris Sanders, and Luke O’Brien, all juniors, banter effortlessly and with the cadence of professionals. It’s stunning how polished they are already.

When journalist and hot-take artist Rob Parker, a friend of Fauria’s who used to battle with him on ESPN’s “First Take,” comes on as a guest, Pedwell appears to catch him off-guard by questioning his long-established (and ridiculous) stance that Tom Brady is a cheater who should be considered the Lance Armstrong of the NFL.

“This opinion is so outrageous that I have to push back on it,’’ says Penwell. “You really think Tom Brady became Tom Brady because of Deflategate and that stuff?”

Parker looks impressed.

“I’m going to get grilled here,” he says.

At the end of the conversation, Parker declares victory, as hot-takers always must. Fauria jokes, “If that’s the case, I’ve failed as a professor.”

But he has not. All three hosts were prepared and unintimidated. After the show is over, Fauria gathers his students and goes over what worked and what didn’t, a typical post-show meeting. He notes that they did a smooth job scheduling changes and sound issues on the fly, the practical experience that will come in handy down the road.

He closes with a truth his students deserve to hear.

“I’m really proud of you guys,” he said.

Just like that, all of them, even Fauria at last, forged a nice memory from Radio Row.