A career from home

Since baseball got started in July, announcing games has changed a whole bunch. TV announcers would not travel with the team, but would do the play by play and color commentating from the home stadium. Monitors were used, similar to a computer or TV screen we would use at home. There were a few times when the announcer would lose track of the ball and then would excuse their mistake by stating they were in Seattle and not Oakland, or Houston, etc.

The same thing is happening with college basketball. There has been one ESPN broadcast where the announcers were at the MAC on the Gonzaga campus. They were social-distanced with Plexiglas separating the two. It was good to see them live at the game, and not the Zoom look at home.

Most games like the one on Thursday had announcers doing the game from their basement or den, I assume. The announcers for the BYU game came to us live from their homes in Texas and New York. Last week I tuned into a game between Wyoming and Boise State, and one of the announcers was Dan Dickau the former All-American guard from Gonzaga doing the analysis. I assume he was doing this from his home in Spokane, because he wasn’t anywhere near Wyoming.

It only makes sense to do the broadcast from afar, since so many games have been postponed or even canceled. You can imagine if the announcers for the game showed up, but the game does not happen. It is also important for guys like Dick Vitale or Bill Rafftery, who are of the age where C-19 can be a serious issue if they happen to contract the virus.

I do get a bit frustrated when the announcers go off on a tangent, and miss some great play that should be recognized. I still think the announcers should focus on the game and not their own personality.

This got me to thinking about where the next great announcers and color analysts are going to come from. If you are a young person who is interested in a great career that obviously pays well and gives the opportunity to travel and witness some great athletes play sports, then I think you should pick a game of interest and download the team rosters and research the players and coaches and a bit of history of the school.

Then get a recording device of your choosing, and practice doing some play-by-play or color analysis. Who knows, this may be the wave of the future where you can do the broadcasting from your favorite room in the house.

This was done years ago when the old PCL games that were played in Hawaii or if travel was an issue. Guys like Bob Robertson would broadcast a game from a studio. They would get the play-by-play over a device, and then the announcer would replay the inning by using fan noise and the sound of a bat hitting a ball. This takes a great deal of imagination and going the extra mile making the game sound as realistic as possible. It worked rather well since it always sounded like any other broadcast made from the home field.

Good announcers get their start somehow; even the bad announcers must have done this at some point in time. It’s honestly too bad that ESPN wasn’t around during my youth. I may have given sports announcing a try.

There is another thing that I’ve noticed in the game broadcasts without fans, and that is the coaches aren’t dressing up for the games; opting not to wear suits or sport jackets and slacks with a nice tie, but instead wearing more casual coaching shirts and slacks or even colored jeans. I actually like the look. It makes sense, but who knows, maybe this will be the new norm. Obviously it doesn’t affect their coaching. Consider it college basketball’s idea of casual Friday.

In this time of C-19 and the limitations that are placed upon us, it is important to look for something positive to grasp. Why not try something new to enhance the next game. Just don’t try to emulate Bill Walton – that idea could go very wrong.