Sept. 19 marked the first “Pizza With The Pros” of the fall. To kick off the semester, Rowan University Sports Communication & Media students welcomed the In-Game Host of the Savannah Bananas, Cast Director, and Rowan University alumni Matt Graifer.

Graifer became a mainstay with the incredibly popular Banana Ball World Tour in 2022 as the In-Game Host. Last year, he was honored by the Rowan University Alumni Awards Program, receiving the “4 Under 40” award. At age 25, he began his career in education as a college professor, earning the nickname “The Young Professor.” Graifer started in the entertainment industry by working part-time and hosting weekly restaurant trivia games.

Graifer grew up in Rahway, New Jersey, and only came to Rowan University because his high school girlfriend was also going. Even though their relationship didn’t last past freshman year, Graifer said he doesn’t regret the decision.

“I was glad that I ultimately stayed because, from my sophomore year on, I began enjoying and maximizing my experience here as a student,” Graifer said.

Graifer studied psychology during his time here at Rowan. He graduated in 2008 but didn’t know what he wanted to do with his career until three years ago. Graifer explained why he chose to study psychology.

“If you understand how people operate, what makes people work, I think that’s a valuable skill that can help you anywhere,” said Graifer.

The struggle to pick a major came from Graifer being a first-generation college student. Even though he did well with his studies, Graifer quickly realized that working in psychology wasn’t something he wanted to do in the future.

“As I got invested in my studies, I did well. I connected with my professors on campus, but I started to realize that working in the field of psychology directly was not something that had appealed to me, but you start something, you finish it through,” Graifer said.

In his sophomore year, Graifer’s perspective of working changed. At the time, Rowan’s Recreational Center was one of the more desirable places to work on campus, so much so that you had to go through three interviews to get the job. After going through the interview process, Graifer landed the job at the end of his sophomore year and started working at the start of his junior year. Very quickly, Graifer fell in love with the job due to the great environment and staff. For the first time in his life, Graifer realized that he could have fun while working. 

In November of his junior year, one of the graduate students asked him to come to a conference meeting in New Hampshire. After that meeting, Graifer was set on pursuing a career in campus recreation. However, like many things in Graifer’s career path, they did not go as planned.

After graduating from Rowan University, Graifer completed a fifth year at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and became a graduate assistant there. At SIUE, Graifer studied Kinesiology with a minor in Sports and Exercise Behavior.

Graifer got hired out of college by a private sector company in Florida. After working there for a year, Graifer decided that he wanted to go back to working in higher education. He ended up working in college admissions, but he preferably wanted to work in Campus Recreation. The only problem with that was that, at the time, Graifer met someone and was expecting a baby, which made him have to work around the area. 

Six to seven months later, Graifer was offered a job at a school in Florida. Before taking the position, Graifer had no aspirations to teach, but with how life was going for him at the time, he was determined to succeed.

“I was really motivated. I was a single father at the time. I wanted to be involved in my son’s life. I was not happy where life had been taking me then, so I worked extremely hard to be an incredible, qualified professor to do all those things, and I studied harder than I ever did as a student,” Graifer said.

For the next seven and a half years, Graifer continued teaching until the program he taught in was removed from the campus. However, this didn’t stop Graifer. He went on to get a sales job while working part-time as a trivia host in restaurants and bars. When another teaching job opened up, Graifer quit his sales job and became a teacher by day and an entertainer by night. While working, Graifer was constantly asked if he was an announcer because of his voice.

Growing up a wrestling fan, when Graifer saw that an independent wrestling school about 30 minutes from his house was looking for an announcer, he couldn’t help but go for the job. After announcing his first match, he did a good enough job that he was asked to continue to come back. Graifer took all of the recordings that he had and sent them to all different kinds of teams. Within the following year, Graifer announced professional football, wrestling, MMA, boxing, and minor league baseball until he discovered the place he’s currently at, the one and only Savannah Bananas.

“Pizza With The Pros” will continue this upcoming Monday, Sept. 23rd, with a new guest speaker.

For comments/questions about this story DM us on Instagram @thewhitatrowan or email features@thewhitonline.com