By day, Rene Ingoglia is an Orlando Police detective. On weekends, he’s an ESPN analyst.

Plenty of broadcasters work other jobs, but Rene Ingoglia has one of the most unique. Ingoglia, a game analyst for ESPN, is also a detective in the internal affairs unit of the Orlando Police Department.  As David Harris of The Orlando Sentinel writes, Ingoglia was a star running back at the University of Massachusetts from 1993 to 1995, then went on to brief NFL stints and a season in NFL Europe before joining the Orlando police in 2000 (where he worked his way up from patrol officer to robbery division detective to his current job). His love for football never left, though, leading him to take up broadcasting:

But Ingoglia wanted back into football. Coaching would be too much of a time commitment, so he tried broadcasting.

Because he didn’t have any experience, Ingoglia became a volunteer analyst for his alma mater’s radio crew in 2009. As soon as he put on the headset, he became hooked, he said.

He paid his own way to fly to the games after work on Friday and stayed overnight at a friend’s house.

Ingoglia parlayed that gig into a paid job at ESPN, joining the network in 2010. AL.com reported analysts get paid anywhere from $2,500 to $30,000 per game.

“There’s no passion like there is in college football,” he said. “I love going to each campus and see people excited about the games. Just being a little part of that, it’s awesome.”

Ingoglia usually works with play-by-play commentator Mike Corey, calling American Athletic Conference or Mountain West Conference games on ESPNU or ESPNews. He also calls some high school games and the Pop Warner Super Bowl. It’s impressive that he can juggle that with his police work, but to all accounts, he’s doing a good job; Corey said “He’s just one of the most passionate, excited broadcasters I’ve worked with,”and even Orlando police chief John Mina appreciates what Ingoglia does on the weekend.

“Not only is he a great detective, but he knows his college football,” Mina said. “I have tuned in to several of his games, follow him on Twitter and really impressed with his knowledge of the game and the players.”

It’s pretty cool that Ingoglia can have two prominent and fulfilling careers, and that he can balance the two. He certainly has one of the more unique jobs outside broadcasting, and it’s neat to see it featured this way.

[Orlando Sentinel]