It can be a struggle for Rick Cerrone to talk about his career without someone accusing him of being a “name dropper.”

With business contacts like Robert Redford, Alex Rodriguez, and Keith Olbermann, though, it would be hard for Shakespeare to sound modest telling Cerrone’s story.

Since graduating from NIU in 1976, Cerrone has had stints as a magazine publisher, movie consultant, and as the first-hand man to the late George Steinbrenner.

Cerrone spoke recently at the NIU baseball team’s Leadoff Banquet. Following the banquet, Cerrone sat down to discuss a few highlights from his 30-year career.

From a young age, Cerrone dreamed of becoming the director of media relations for the New York Yankees. Since majoring in sports marketing was not an option in the 1970’s, Cerrone majored in journalism.

During his senior year, Cerrone became the radio voice of the NIU football and men’s basketball teams to strengthen his resume.

“The football team won three games and the basketball team won five,” Cerrone said. “We were 5-21. It was not fun.”

While writing for the Northern Star in the summer of his senior year, Cerrone wrote a sports memorabilia story on a baseball-card manufacturer from New York.

Mike Aronstein created baseball cards as a hobby, but the only way he could legally print the cards was if he printed a magazine with them.

“After I graduated, I get this call from Aronstein who had created this magazine and he said he needed help putting out the winter issue,” Cerrone said. “He said to me, ‘I got all the type and photos and my editor has left and gone off to college.'”

That editor just happened to be future SportsCenter and NBC anchor Keith Olbermann.

Following a stint as the publication’s editor, Cerrone purchased Baseball Quarterly from Aronstein and changed the name to Baseball Magazine. The next challenge for Cerrone was getting the magazine into the public eye. To do that, Cerrone searched out the best publicity there is; free publicity.

“We would name a player of the decade, the greatest moment of the decade, best plays of the month,” Cerrone said. “All of that sort of stuff.”

Cerrone later accepted a job as the Assistant Director of PR at MLB.

Using the position as a spring board, Cerrone accepted a job with the Pittsburgh Pirates before finally landing his dream job in New York. During his tenure as the director of media relations, the Yankees won four World Series. Cerrone also acted as a consultant for the movies, “The Natural” and “*61.”

Cerrone left the Yankees in 2006 and has since founded Rick Cerrone Communications. For the next year, Cerrone will serve as a consultant for the NIU marketing department. Cerrone will concentrate on season ticket sales for the 2011 football team.

NIU baseball head coach Ed Mathey went up to the podium immediately following Cerrone at the Leadoff Banquet. Putting his predicament into baseball terms, Mathey explained how difficult it is to follow Cerrone.

“Putting Rick in front of me is like putting your closer in the game during the seventh inning, and then putting your set up guy after him,” Mathey said. “You don’t do that with Rick ready to speak.”