Sam Lagana
Episode 354
10 NOV 2025
He is an established voice-over and on-air and venue announcer/sportscasting talent who is known for his voice presence at Los Angeles Rams football games since 2016. He traveled the nation and world as the on-site voice of AVP Beach Volleyball for most of the 1980s and 90s. Additionally, he announced tennis, volleyball, and roller hockey at The Forum in L.A. He has provided his voice for many commercials over 30 years and announced USC, Pepperdine, and CSUN collegiate basketball and Avengers Arena Football at Staples Center in the 80s, 90s, and 2000’s. He serves on the Boards of the John R. Wooden Award Foundation, the Los Angeles Sports and Entertainment Commission, and West Coast Sports Associates. He was the recipient of the 2025 Humanitarian Award from Catholic Charities.
Notable guest quotes:
“My father was raised in the Catholic tradition, my mother immigrated to it, and they raised us in a traditional Catholic environment at Corpus Christi Parish in Pacific Palisades… I was an altar server.”
“I don’t know how competitive I play, but the reality is I am competing today at my age in volleyball, in softball, in basketball.”
“I thought that I would be the next great multi-sport athlete until my back told me that was not going to be the case. In junior high I got hurt and I found out that I had … an extra lumbar in my lower vertebra and my … muscular skeletal system was not growing at the same pace as my body.”
“I was … going up for a rebound in basketball and I got low bridged in practice and I couldn’t move on the court when I was trying to get up and so that’s when they actually really identified my physical issue and they wanted me to stop playing.”
“There was another young woman who was on the girls’ basketball team and on the golf team and she was keeping the book and so I sat between them to announce these games and … she now is the governor of the Los Angeles Lakers, Jeanie Buss. That’s how I wound up getting into announcing.”
“I had served at Pepperdine (University) for nearly 20 years, which is a Christian institution and, interestingly, a significant number amount of the students are of the Catholic tradition.”
“Bringing people together in community is something that I believe in; togetherness, relationship, those are elements that I speak to quite often – faith, family, and friends.”
“I start my prayer always with thanks, giving thanks to the Lord… but then it’s also for me to ask how I can share goodness and happiness with other people.”
“Maybe even that’s how I picked up some of my announcing was doing readings, and the first reading I ever did has stayed with me and that is Corinthians thirteen… and in almost all my speaking engagements I continue to use this, and I have for most of my life.”
“The first day when I took on the leadership of CEO and president of Notre Dame High School… Mr. (Vin) Scully called me to congratulate me and chat with me.”