Kevin Demoff ’99 has been surrounded by football throughout his life. Demoff was a sports editor for his high school newspaper and he joined the sports section of The Dartmouth. After graduation, Demoff continued sports writing for Broadband Sports and later landed a role with the St. Louis Rams, who played in Demoff’s hometown of Los Angeles until 1995. Demoff is now the president of the Los Angeles Rams. The Dartmouth sat down with Demoff to discuss his time working for The Dartmouth and his career in professional sports.
What was it like covering Dartmouth football?
KD: The Dartmouth football team was awesome. The year I started covering them was when they went undefeated in ’96. It was an amazing ride through an undefeated season. I still have awesome memories of going to the games that year and watching them achieve this amazing milestone and seeing it come to life right in front of you. What was always great about Dartmouth football then — and even now — is that you could put aside everything you knew about the NFL and the rest of the college football world when you were in this bubble of Ivy League football. The competition back then — and playing in the Patriot League — was all big-time football.
That game [when they won] the title against Brown, which was the second-to-last game, was one of the best football games I’ve ever seen. No matter whether it was playing in the Super Bowl or playing in playoff games or going to games as a fan, that Dartmouth-Brown game in 1996 was as good as it gets from a fandom perspective, and to get to cover it was even better.
How did The Dartmouth prepare you for your career in professional sports?
KD: I have a softer spot for media covering us and just media in general, from my background as a writer, editor and broadcaster. I understand the role the media plays in telling stories [so I have] more patience.
It’s always helped me build stronger relationships in any team you run, be it football, basketball, hockey or soccer. Having a good relationship with the media, so that you can tell your story, is paramount. That’s a lesson that 100% comes from my time as both a writer and editor in college.
Did working at The Dartmouth help solidify that you wanted to work in sports?
KD: Yes and no. I think working at The Dartmouth helped solidify that I wanted to be in sports media. I spent a lot of my time senior year thinking I was going to go write somewhere and cover sports. I had two job offers. One was as a researcher at CBS Sports for March Madness. The other was [working at] HBO Sports as a production assistant researcher at Real Sports. I applied for a bunch of jobs covering teams in places like Appleton, Wisconsin and Alabama.
Thankfully, none of those actually worked out. I ultimately wound up taking a job — really because of The Dartmouth — at an internet company called Broadband Sports. I started out writing NFL columns and doing news and notes. But certainly all of my first jobs coming out of college were based on the work I had done at The Dartmouth.
You’re the president of an NFL team and team and media operations for Kroenke Sports and Entertainment. How do you balance your responsibilities?
KD: I try to be where I need to be. When you’re running an NFL team, at certain times, it’s all hands on deck. There are weeks when we had the NFL draft in Los Angeles, both the Nuggets and the Avalanche were in the playoffs, the Rapids had a game and Arsenal was playing in the Champions League quarter finals and semifinals. You feel it acutely right now when you’re running four teams.
I oversee all of our North American teams: the Rams, the Nuggets, the Avalanche, the Rapids and we have an indoor lacrosse team, the Mammoth. I keep a little bit of my sports editor past by overseeing our regional sports network, Altitude. We have a sports radio station, which I oversee, harkening back to my broadcast days. A little bit of the media background is coming back into play these days, but the teams take up most of my time.
How is it working in Los Angeles — the city that you grew up in?
KD: The Rams left Los Angeles when I left for Dartmouth. I grew up with the Rams and the Raiders in Los Angeles. It was great to go to games of both teams as a Rams fan growing up. I was an early fantasy football player, so I liked players just as much as teams.
But to be able to bring an NFL team back to Los Angeles and back to my hometown was something truly amazing. I have enjoyed every minute of building a stadium, bringing the NFL back to Los Angeles and — fortunately enough — winning a Lombardi Trophy in the stadium we built in our hometown.
What are your favorite memories from The Dartmouth?
KD: It was certainly the nights working at the paper. We had a PlayStation set up in the sports area. While we waited for stories to come in, we would play copious amounts of FIFA and NHL on PlayStation. Those were great memories, just being in the newsroom. The stories were the stories. You always got a kick out of trying to find a way to write 400 words on one of the Olympics sports that came in very late. Ultimately, it was the people you worked with on a daily basis. We were in college putting out a daily paper – that was always an amazing feeling.
This article has been edited for clarity and length.
