MAKING IT BIG: Durham College Journalism alumnus Rob Leth returns to school to talk about his career.
Lets flashback to 1994: Rob Leth was a student at Durham College, enrolled in the Journalism Program. He didn’t know what he wanted to do going into college but that quickly changed.
Fast forward 21 years and Leth is now the sports anchor for Global Toronto. But that didn’t come easy. It came with hard work and as Leth likes to put it, a little luck.
“It’s a hard business to get into. You do have to get lucky here and there,” Leth says.
Leth worked for Rogers TV in Oshawa from 1999-2001 as the part-time sports anchor and then at Rogers in Richmond Hill from 2001-2003 as the full time sports anchor. He then went to work for Global Toronto in 2003.
His big break happened when he covered the Toronto Board of Trade Golf Tournament in Woodbridge in 2002 and Global Sports had people there. Leth was carrying his camera around and walked up to the Global sports anchor at the time Jim Tatti. Leth asked Tatti if he would look at his demo, which he did and told Leth to give him a call.
Leth joined the Global team as a sports videographer and weekend sports desk anchor. He has always worked in sports because that was his passion. When he went to Durham College he was the sports editor for The Chronicle.
As much as he loved sports, Leth has also spent time covering the news after Canwest went bankrupt and the whole sports department was cut.
When Canwest sold its assets to Shaw the sports department was reinstated and Leth was able to cover sports again.
As sports anchor Leth has covered many different events. This includes the 2014 Winter Classic in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the Toronto Blue Jays spring training in 2013 and the 2012 Grey Cup in Toronto.
Leth has met many famous people including auto racer Mario Andretti, swimsuit model Elle Macpherson, WWE wrestlers Matt and Jeff Hardy and hockey legend Wayne Gretzky. But the one person who stands out to Leth is when he met former Toronto Maple Leafs captain Mats Sundin.
“Mats Sundin was the player that I idolized growing up and to meet him in person when I first started in the business, he was such a class act. Some guys that you love and adore, you meet them face to face and they’re jerks. Which is disappointing but he’s a class act,” Leth says.
If he could go back in time to when he was in college and tell himself anything it would be to know what you want to do and have a plan, Leth says. He would also show up to those classes he missed.
“I would be more committed to the classes and make sure I was really looking when I graduated. I lacked focus at the time but it all worked out.”
