Arden Locke always knew she wanted to pursue a career in broadcasting. After all, it’s in her blood.
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Utah sports fans likely recognize Locke’s last name. Her father, David Locke, is the radio play-by-play voice of the Utah Jazz and the founder and CEO of the Locked On Podcast Network.
Her mother, Akemi (née Takei) Louchheim, was a Seattle Seahawks sideline reporter and was one of the first female sportscasters at Seattle’s KING 5. Her paternal grandmother, Aline B. Saarinen — the namesake for Arden’s middle name — had her own talk show, “For Women Only.”
A career in sports broadcasting would also keep Arden, a Division I golfer who won last year’s Utah Women’s State Amateur and a former competitive skier, involved in sports long after her collegiate career ends.
“It really was just knowing that I wanted to stay involved in sports and then my parents showing me that the broadcasting was a feasible avenue to take,” Arden Locke told the Deseret News.
Now one year shy of finishing her broadcasting degree at the University of Nebraska, the 21-year-old is the play-by-play voice for the Ogden Raptors and is believed to be the first woman to be the voice of a men’s professional team in Utah.
“It’s been incredible. I mean, it was a dream come true because deep down, I really wanted the Raptors job, but it didn’t seem to be available,” she said. “So, I just never really got my hopes up on it.”
Following in her parents’ footsteps
Growing up, Arden Locke used to call play-by-play in her head, and according to her dad, it always featured one particular Jazzman.
“It was always Carlos Boozer, and it was always against the Denver Nuggets,” David Locke said. “I mean, she was really little, but she’d always be like, ‘And Boozer scores! They lead the Nuggets!’”
Her dad did the same with board games growing up as an only child, complete with his own pregame, postgame and halftime shows.
Arden Locke would shadow her dad at Jazz pregame press conferences before swapping out her sweater — which is what she considered “business casual” at 10 years old — for her Rudy Gobert or Gordon Hayward jerseys and foam finger to watch the game.
Once when she was in high school, she filled in as her dad’s stats person. Watching his daughter follow in his footsteps is “as magical as you think it would be,” David Locke said.
“It’s so fun to listen every night and hear how much better she’s getting every day, and how, you know, I’m biased, but how good I think she is for 21 years old,” he said. “It’s really, really neat because I have the passion — and think she does too — but it’s most neat, it’s most magical because of how hard she’s working.”
Not only does Arden Locke have her father as a resource as she continues to learn and grow in the industry, but she also has her mom, whom David Locke described as “an unbelievable sports reporter” and the “best I’ve ever seen.”
“She was on KING 5 in Seattle at 24 years old, maybe 25, but she could have been anything she wanted to be if she had kept going,” he said. “And she’d still be great if her husband hadn’t ruined her career.”
Akemi Locke retired when Arden was about 3 years old. The Lockes had moved from Seattle to Utah when David Locke began working for the Jazz. She continued in her Seahawks role for a year, but with every game an away game for her, and her husband traveling with the Jazz on their road games, the travel became too much with two young children.
“I’ve seen videos of her reporting when she still did it, and she was amazing. She was awesome,” Arden Locke said.
Every year, she and her mom travel to Seattle to attend a Seahawks game, where her mom’s former boss lets them onto the sideline at Lumen Field.
“So not exactly seeing my mom work but then just getting to see the environment that she existed in and kind of knowing the job that she used to do has been really cool for me to see kind of both angles of what my parents did,” Arden Locke said.
She has dabbled in sideline reporting, which her mom has helped her with. Akemi Locke has also acted as her daughter’s producer of sorts.
“I would give her the stories that I had prepared, and then she would be watching the game and be like, ‘Oh, I think that this hit would be really good right now,’ and stuff like that,’” she said.
The 21-year-old has embraced her parents’ combined knowledge of and experience in the industry, which has impressed her dad.
“She’s been incredible about how willing and receptive she is to feedback, both from me and (her) mom,” he said.
‘The coolest experience of my life’
Arden Locke’s decision to follow in her parents’ footsteps came full circle on Dec. 31, 2025.
When Arden saw Nebraska would be playing in the Las Vegas Bowl, she realized it would be just a six-hour drive from Tucson, Arizona, where she’d be spending her winter break. So, she texted her professor, Bill Doleman, and asked if he could get her a spot in the booth if she covered all the expenses.
Doleman got Arden a booth but told her that he likely wouldn’t be able to find another student to join her, so she would have to call the game alone.
That gave Arden an idea. She asked Doleman if her dad could call the game with her. Her professor didn’t see an issue with the idea.
“I always had dreamed of doing a call with my dad, and we did fake calls together in his office all the time, like that was kind of what we did together,” Arden Locke said. “But I just never really saw a world where I was going to be good enough to call a game with him. I didn’t really see a situation where he was kind of like coming down to my level, I guess.”
David Locke first checked to make sure there wasn’t a noncompete in his contract to call a game for another radio network. Then, it came down to the Jazz’s schedule.
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That would require a miracle.
Not only would the Jazz have to not be playing at the same time as the bowl game, but it would also have to be an off-day, because the Jazz play-by-play voice steers clear of flying on game days to avoid delays that could result in him missing the game.
The Lockes were in luck. There wasn’t a Jazz game that day.
“I was kind of amazed at first that the NBA schedule allowed it to happen. Like, that was almost like a sign that we were supposed to do it,” David Locke said.
After the Jazz’s game against the Boston Celtics on Dec. 30 in Salt Lake City, he flew to Las Vegas. The next day, he called the bowl game with his daughter at noon and then flew to Los Angeles that night for the Jazz’s game against the Los Angeles Clippers the following day.
“It was a really wonderful experience because I had never been able to stand there and see what she was seeing when she was calling the game,” David Locke said.
Arden and David weren’t doing it alone. The entire broadcast was a family affair, with Akemi serving as their spotter.
When the game ended, which Utah won 44-22, the father-daughter duo pulled off their headsets, hugged each other and cried.
Next to marrying his wife and the birth of his two children, David Locke considers that moment at the “top of the list” of the best moments of his life.
“We will all forever have that shared experience,” he said. “Who gets to do that, right? And my wife was on the broadcast too, so like, who gets to do that? No one. Like, it was amazing.”
Arden Locke feels the same.
“Maybe I don’t want the best memory of my life to happen at 21, and I’m assuming when I have kids and stuff, it’ll probably top it,” she said. “But as of now, that was just the coolest experience of my life to not only get to be doing the job that my dad inspired me to do, but to do it alongside him was just surreal.”
Blazing her own sports broadcasting trail
Arden Locke, a two-time Academic All-Big Ten member, had already applied to 25-30 summer internships when she got the attention of Dave Baggott, the owner of the Ogden Raptors.
“I was willing to go anywhere. I was applying to places in like North Dakota, places that I probably would have never expected to be living for a summer,” she said.
Her father knew Baggott and asked if he knew of any teams in the Pioneer League who were looking for a broadcaster.
Baggott had Arden Locke send him her play-by-play reel, so he could pass it along. But he decided he wanted to listen to it first, and that was enough for him to know he wanted to hire her for the Raptors.
While her dad made the connection that led to the job, Arden Locke wants to make sure she earns every opportunity on her own merit.
“I want to be in a position where I work hard enough to deserve any connection that maybe I might get easier than someone else,” she said.
Last year alone, Arden Locke called eight sports: football, men’s and women’s basketball, softball, baseball, soccer, gymnastics and volleyball. Her favorite is, unsurprisingly, basketball.
“I think there’s probably that subconscious thing where it’s really, really cool for me to literally do the job that my dad does,” she said. “I entered into college so hardheaded that I was not going to do that, like I was going to do something other than play-by-play. I was going to host at a desk or play-by-play on a different sport, and then, the second that I started doing play-by-play, especially basketball, I just loved it.”
She saw how much her dad enjoyed his job, and she wanted to experience that in her own career.
“I saw him absolutely love what he does every single day, and so seeing that he enjoyed what he did, he still kind of got that rush of being involved in sports because he was an athlete himself,” she said.
That happens to be the one thing her dad wants for her.
“I just hope she has as much fun as I’ve had,” he said.
He sees his daughter going to “places I’ve never been” if she continues to work hard.
“I don’t think she’ll ever be in my shadow,” he said. “I don’t think my shadow’s that big, either. So let me be clear about that.”
After this summer with the Raptors, Arden Locke will return to Nebraska for her final year. She won’t compete for the golf team this season and will instead work in the athletic department’s life skills program, which oversees the community service she previously did in her role on the student-athlete advisory committee.
She also plans on building her broadcasting experience with the student radio station and Big 10 Plus. She’s also hoping to do some work for the Big Ten Network and PGA Tour Live.
When thinking about her future, Arden Locke is torn about her dream career.
“I would love to shine more light on women’s athletics, but I also would like to be a female breaking into men’s sports and calling the NBA and stuff like that,” she said.
One day, she’d love to be the person people are “calling on when it’s a big national game,” but her dad’s job with the Jazz makes the idea of being a team’s official play-by-play voice appealing, especially after experiencing it for herself this summer.
In her role with the Raptors, Arden Locke has gotten to know the players, managers and even the fans.
“I think that’s really cool to have that connection to players and to a team itself,” she said. “So, I don’t know. I think being national would be really cool, and I feel like everyone kind of strives for that. But I also think there is a real beauty in being a member of a team and just one specific fan base.”
You can listen to Arden Locke on the mic for the Raptors on the PBLnetwork.com or on the Raptors’ YouTube livestream.
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