Ashleigh ON AIR
In the basement of the George Washington University Student Center, a red ‘On Air’ light flickers on, the sound board is covered in a brilliant yellow spectacle and a calm voice cuts through the soft crackle of feedback.
Ashleigh Tobin is now streaming live on the air for all to hear. Dishing out the best beats and biggest gambles from the past week in sports. Her first love was the National Football League and every week she takes listeners through over/unders, future bets and daily fantasy lineups.
On the radio, sports gambling is nothing new, especially in 2021 when every major sports league is rushing to ink deals with the biggest sportsbooks in the desert. But Tobin is not following the herd, she is out in front of the pack. Her love for the game doesn’t go back to 2019 when sports gambling was legalized. It goes all the way back to the suburbs of Needham, Massachusetts, and Sundays with her dad where the two grew closer with every Patriots win.
Years of well spent Sundays went by between these two until some of those Sundays were spent on college applications as much as they were on the Patriots. Eventually, applications turned into decisions that would ultimately lead Tobin to the nation’s capital. Saying goodbye is never easy and in Massachusetts staying put for college makes almost too much sense. But as much as Tobin loves her family, she wanted to get just far enough away to grow and discover herself. In making the leap to George Washington University she did exactly that.
September 9, 2021, it was her first Sunday away from family. For years Tobin and her dad would sit down at the table and lock in their picks, for better or for worse. This week they would have to be separate. Tobin gave her dad a call that morning to talk shop but just a few hours before the game decided she would take matters into her own hands. She went on DraftKings, set her Daily Fantasy lineup and sat down to watch opening night, Tampa Bay Buccaneers versus Dallas Cowboys.
$3 she had wagered that night. As the results came in she could not help but call her dad with an unmistakable excitement in her voice.
“I sat there on the phone just watching points roll in all night. I called my dad immediately afterwards and just yelled through the phone ‘Dad I won $40,000 dollars!!!’, ” said Tobin.
The big win kicked off an unbelievable season of good beats and led to her show on WRGW student radio. Just a few months later she was sitting in the Charles E. Smith Center, headset on, doing color commentary for GW Men’s Basketball and meeting all the potential that Scott Rosenberg, her show host at WRGW, always saw in her.
“From the second she started helping on the show you could tell she just got it,” said Rosenberg.
Those passionate outbursts of fandom and love for sports were not immediately obvious to her peers at GW, but Ashleigh’s sister, Brook Tobin has been watching Ashleigh do this for as long as she can remember.
The two are practically sewn together at just 18 months apart and as close as sisters can be.
“Ashleigh raised us kind of, she’s who we came to first when we needed advice,” said Brooke. “I don’t know what she’ll do after college, when she cares about something she really latches on though.”
Ashleigh is a very patterned person by nature. You can find her sitting in the same spot, on the same side of the room with the same iced coffee (Dunkin Donuts of course) every Tuesday and Thursday studying news writing. The consistent routine of classes is comforting to Tobin, even with the switch to in-person classes and this semester’s harrowing 7:30am wake ups.
As for the future, unlike her Tuesday mornings, Tobin only has hopes for what it holds, not plans.
“I’ve never really been sure of what I want to do. I love politics and I love sports and now I really like journalism too. It feels like the intersection of all those things in a way,” said Tobin.
Tobin has been on the career carousel like any other college student jumping from politics, to journalism, to sports reporting and now maybe looking to law school as well. She will not be getting off any time soon though. Like a good eight leg parley on a Sunday afternoon, Tobin is content to enjoy the ride.
For now, she’ll keep clocking in to the radio station, cheering on the Pats, checking up on her sisters and calling home every Sunday to set those lineups.
