USD Magazine Spring 2021

Cats baseball teams until an old friend from San Diego invited him to DJ for the Cowboys in Dallas. “I couldn’t say no to that opportunity!” he recalls. Putting together a plan for game day is like creating “an intricate puzzle,” he explains. “I have spent hundreds of hours preparing my music program to be ready with a song for that moment. You have to know the sport, what songs fit well within that sport and where those songs are in your program. A good sports DJ will anticipate what’s going to happen next in the game and have that song ready to play instantly. I have an awesome A-ha/The Weekend ‘Take On Me/Blinding Lights’ remix that fans have loved during various games.” Other favorites include Aloe Blacc’s “King Is Born” and Niall Horan’s “Nice to Meet Ya.” With his experience, he created his own company, DJ EJ Enter- prises, LLC, and cultivated a team of DJs to cover more than 400 events per year. “It’s become a fun business to grow from the ground up and thankfully we’re doing a good enough job to keep expand- ing throughout the USA,” he says. Recently the firm picked up Army football. He also kept up his relationship with the Padres; when the shortened schedule finally came together during the pandemic, they invited him back to San Diego. With no fans in the ballpark, he shifted his playlist to music he knew the players loved, helping them to relax and have fun. “If I see the guys bobbing their heads or dancing to the songs I play, that is definitely a win for every- one involved,” he says. “To see them make the playoffs for the first time since 2006 and to be an integral part of that has been so awesome not only for the players and our crew, but for the entire city of San Diego.”

C O U R T E S Y O F E R I K J O R G E N S E N ‘ 0 0 ( B A )

[ p l a y l i s t ]

Liz Harman A DJing the soundtrack for pro sports teams I N T H E B I G L E A G U E S former Torero baseball player, Erik Jorgensen ’00 (BA) has made it to the

games in Lima, Peru, and a few NFL games in London. And in the summer of 2020, he was back in San Diego with the Padres as they made the playoffs for the first time in 14 years. “It was an amazing opportunity to provide the soundtrack for such an excit- ing team,” he says. Like most entertainers, he didn’t start at the top. After earn- ing his degree from USD in com- munication studies with a minor

in political science, he started working with the Padres shooting video and performing other non-DJ functions. At the same time, he was waiting tables at a Pacific Beach sports bar and says he “lucked into becoming their Saturday night DJ” after playing his mix CDs on a night they hadn’t booked one. He worked the minor leagues including for San Diego Gulls hockey and Sacramento River

big leagues. But he’s not hitting home runs or striking out batters. Instead, he’s combined a love of sports and music to become the official DJ for the Dallas Cowboys and other sports teams in Texas. He’s also performed at sporting events all over the world, includ- ing the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea, the Pan American

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