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By Dale Anderson
Sports Columnist 

Worst Seat In The House: Getting old fast

 

Last updated 2/1/2019 at 10:55am



I think every sports fan has a favorite sports announcer for the big game. There have been some good ones and a few that I tend to roll my eyes and turn the volume down when I hear them talk.

I guess I’m a little like Joe Friday from Dragnet when it comes to watching sports, “Just the facts ma’am, just the facts!” If you don’t know what I’m talking about please use your favorite search engine and do a little investigating for yourself.

Color commentators have been a bit much lately especially during basketball season. To me a color commentator should be pretty black and white. Break down the plays whenever possible and give us good information. Tell us a quick story about a kid that grew up in a tough neighborhood and praise them for having worked hard and are having success.

Lately though, and I’m not the only one, it seems that the color guy is trying to take over the game with their analysis. More often than not they become color critics instead of commentators. It baffles me when these guys start blowing smoke about players we fans have come to know and love and we are subjected to their bombastic chatter.

These college athletes are in the neighborhood of 18-22 years of age and have relocated a long way from home and in some cases in a foreign land to play basketball. For the most part they are embraced by their new school and community and for a few short years they become our favorite players and we hope they can become successful as much as our own kids or our neighbors’ kids down the street.

Without mentioning names there is one commentator that reminds me of the guy that wears those overly bright shirts to work, to church or to the golf course and we might say something like, “That shirt is a bit loud isn’t it?”

Every game that he is the color guy he will go on a tangent about some kid that is the next great player to come out of Duke or North Carolina and he will call them a “Diaper Dandy” meaning a freshman with a lot of skill and upside. Or he might call them a “P T Per” or prime time player, which means they are meant for stardom on the bigger stage.

It seems that he is in love with his voice and wants to take over during stretches of a game. I think we all kind of liked this when he first started as a color guy but he hasn’t added to his repertoire and his shtick is losing its game.

There is another guy that was an All-American at UCLA that I used to enjoy watching during his playing days. He was a great player and the teams he played on were dominant.

As a color guy he goes on and on and drowns out the play by play guy who is trying to tell the viewers who passed, shot, defended or rebounded. But this color guy takes over and sometimes an argument ensues and true to form the color guy always believes he’s right and the play by play guy is wrong. He will sometimes go on about the Pac 12 being the conference of champions. If he doesn’t say it at least five times then you must have gone to the bathroom during one of his Pac 12 commercials.

The color guy in question often wears tie dyed T-shirts which would make sense because this guy’s announcing is confusingly colorful. He is intelligent but his babbling has a lot to be desired.

If it was just me I wouldn’t say a word but in the past week I heard these same comments from others, many others.

Okay, maybe there are a few people that really think this guy is good for the game. But the people I’ve visited with didn’t think that way at all. The comments I heard were: “When is ESPN going to drop him, he’s horrible!” or “Who is that guy? I want to watch the game but I can’t stand listening to him ramble on!”

All I can say is I hope he never does another Gonzaga game because his color comments and criticism are getting old fast.

 

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