{"id":291,"date":"2015-04-05T09:23:59","date_gmt":"2015-04-05T13:23:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/?p=291"},"modified":"2015-04-05T09:24:25","modified_gmt":"2015-04-05T13:24:25","slug":"tell-it-like-it-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/2015\/04\/05\/tell-it-like-it-is\/","title":{"rendered":"Tell it Like it Is…."},"content":{"rendered":"

Very late in the just recent Men’s NCAA semi-final basketball game between Kentucky and Wisconsin, play by play announcer Jim Nance uttered what struck me as not only a highly debatable phrase but one that showed a lack of historical perspective….As the Badgers were about to dispatch the Wildcats and ruin the perfect season, Nance said (something like), \u00a0“…this has been the greatest(one of) semi-final game in NCAA history”…Now granted Kentucky was unbeaten and either way the result would have been stunning but in my mind, it’s just this kind of hyperbole that sets play by play announcers up to fail…I’m not about to formulate a list of the greatest Final Four games of all time but let’s be realistic, this one wouldn’t make the top ten….It was an okay game but there just might have been more suspense in the earlier game, Duke and Michigan State with $1 million dollars <\/a>on the line for one college hoop fan…Coincidentally, this is the 50 year anniversary of the epic battle between Michigan’s Cazzie Russell and Princeton’s Bill Bradley, a game that saw the a pair of future teammates go head to head, Russell getting 28, Bradley 29 as the Wolverines prevailed….Easily one of the standards under Nance’s thinking…<\/p>\n

The play by play announcer has one job, to describe the action…So when Bob Socci<\/a> and Jon Meterparel<\/a> visited the Boston University sports journalism seminar series recently, it came as no surprise that they had very definite ideas as to their responsibility on air…”You just wanna get it right, said Socci, every game is the biggest game you’re gonna call”…Despite the surge in sales of large screen TVs, sports fans still watch on the “small screen”, literally…And they rely on the play by play person to describe what’s going on…Everyone has their favorites, everyone has their least favorites…Website like Awful Announcing<\/a> and Deadspin<\/a> have made a living from chronicling miscues…The same goes for lists of Top Ten Best Calls<\/a>…Take your pick…<\/p>\n

My pet peeve has always been announcers who describe everything that’s going on, especially on television…Is it any wonder fans sometimes turn off the sound and listen to the radio call?…Meterparel has done both TV and radio and he says there’s a not so subtle difference, especially when it comes to working a game with a partner…”Incorporating your analyst to make it more of a talk show around the game (is important) from a radio perspective. \u00a0TV is a polar opposite. \u00a0It’s kind of like connect the dots but you have to be very descriptive in radio.”<\/p>\n

Let’s face it, viewers feel like they know just as much about the players and the game as the people they tune into listen to…The viewers\/listeners \u00a0want it down the middle though …You want to entertain me along the way, throw in a well researched anecdote? Fine…But don’t try to impress me(us) with every little number(stat) you’ve found…Some of the greatest calls in history haven’t lasted more than five words! “Down Goes Frazier!<\/a>“, “Havlicek Stole the Ball!<\/a>“, “The Giants Win the Pennant!”<\/a>…Identify with your audience, understand their passion…You might be just lucky enough to say “I Don’t Believe What I Just Saw!”<\/a>…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Very late in the just recent Men’s NCAA semi-final basketball game between Kentucky and Wisconsin, play by play announcer Jim Nance uttered what struck me as not only a highly debatable phrase but one that showed a lack of historical perspective….As the Badgers were about to dispatch the Wildcats and ruin the perfect season, Nance […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":901,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/901"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":294,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291\/revisions\/294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}