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Knights announcer reaching milestone

August 25, 2008
Charlotte Knights play-by-play radio broadcaster Matt Swierad is closing in on his 2,500th game in the broadcast booth.

Swierad has been with the Knights for 11 seasons and has called games during two IL South Divisional Championships and one International League Championship in 1999.

Swierad began his broadcasting career with the Gastonia Rangers before moving on to the Hagerstown Suns and Hickory Crawdads. During 2005, Swierad received his first "call-up" to the Major Leagues with the San Diego Padres, filling-in for Hall of Fame broadcaster Jerry Coleman at Petco Park. He did the play-by-play for the Padres-Reds series in San Diego when Coleman was in Cooperstown, NY for his induction into the International Leagues' All-Star Broadcaster for the 2005 Triple-A All Star in Sacramento, CA.

The 1990 graduate of Jacksonville (FLA) University is also the basketball radio play-by-play "Voice" of the Charlotte 49ers in the Atlantic-10 Conference and does the occasional television play-by-play for ESPN Regional Television and Fox Sports Net. Swierd has also handled broadcasts for Jacksonville University, University of South Florida, UT Chattanooga, C-USA, The Southern Conference, The Big South Conference and the Sun Belt Conference.

Game number 2,500 will be on August 31st when the Knights host the Durham Bulls.

The Charlotte Knights are the Triple-A affiliate of the Chicago White Sox. For ticket or event information, please contact the Knights front office at (704) 357-8071 or (803) 548-8050 or visit our website at www.charlotteknights.com for more information.