"What's Your Favorite Sport to Broadcast?"

Problogue: I love being a sports broadcaster, and really like it when people show an interest in what I do and how I do it.  I think, though, when fans ask me questions they are just making conversation or don't know what else to say to me.  I don't want to give them a real short answer to their questions, but more than once I've described the construction of the clock instead of just giving the current time, seeing glazed eyes staring back at me, or worse, staring over my shoulder.  I'll work on my direct answers.

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More than anything else people want to know when they find out I'm a sportscaster is, "What's your favorite sport to broadcast?"

Hmm, let's see; it's a long list of sports I've broadcast that I can consider.

There are the obvious sports that everyone knows about: football, men's and women's basketball (yes, they are different sports), and baseball.

Then there are sports I've broadcast that don't come to mind immediately to most people, like softball, men's and women's volleyball (again, vastly different) and wrestling.

And soccer...that's an interesting one because soccer on TV can be very slow to a broadcaster because you mostly name the people who make touches, and now and then the defenders that mark the offensive players, yet soccer on the radio is extremely fast (especially at the amateur level, where there are more turnovers) because you not only name the players but create a picture in the listener's mind of where the ball is, which direction it's heading, and what the pass or shot or save looks like.

Swimming and tennis can be fun, and not a lot of announcers at my level have had the opportunity to broadcast those.

Auto racing was a brand new thing to me when I first tried it in the mid 2000s...BMX bike racing too...

Mud volleyball is played...in chocolate milk, I think

Softball for disabled adults and kids.

I've done one hockey match.

Mud volleyball...now that's unique.

So I have a bunch to choose from.

Now the envelope, please.  And the winner is:

The winner is that I get really excited to do the next one.  When I wake up in the morning and I have a softball game scheduled, my favorite sport is softball.  When volleyball is the sport that day, that's my favorite sport to broadcast, and so on.  I'm blessed, I think, that I can wake up excited about that day's event to cover, and I know that when I'm done preparing and fortunate enough during the game to avoid technical problems, I'm going to have a good time and enjoy whatever happens in the game.

OK, that's not really the answer, as I dodged that question.  I mean, if a basketball parent asks what my favorite sport is...can I really answer, baseball?

So here's some truthful information:

The sport I'm the best at broadcasting is basketball.  I've simply done more basketball than any other sport, I guess.

The sport that is most challenging for me to do is football.  About 30 starters from each team (I count the specialists and return guys as starters) that I need to know a lot about, plus second and third stringers that I need to know something about, plus tons of stats to interpret and stories to unwind and a three-hour long broadcast done a long way away from the field of play.  I would spend a total of about five hours to create an opponent's spot chart and update my team's spot chart each week.

My football spot chart-with offense only-from 2017

The most fun broadcast is baseball.  On TV, lots of time to tell stories and interact with a color analyst; on radio, so many things to describe and the time to do it.  Also, it's the game I've been most involved with as a player and coach.

The quickest game to broadcast on radio--along with soccer--is volleyball, another sport I have a background in as a coach.  Calling by name the players who touch the ball so quickly in this sport is a-machine-gun approach, but a nice break between plays to recap.  On TV, the beauty of the athletic play is easy to see.  Women's volleyball is a combination of power, finesse and quickness, plus strategic serving; men's volleyball is power, power, power, with tremendous ball handling.

Softball is fun with its quick tempo and lots of action (as opposed to the slowdown in baseball with runners on base).  Not much time for stories, even on TV, and certainly not on radio.  Low scoring and pitching, strikes and outs, and defense dominate in good softball.  I can live without the cheering in the dugout (just teasing, ladies, you go do what you do).

I've come to respect the buildup and drama in soccer.  Americans say it's boring but the world disagrees, and I side with the world on this one.  Good passing and the ability to build an attack is a beautiful thing.  Plus TV broadcasting allows time to tell stories.

Swimming, tennis, auto racing, hockey, BMX racing and wrestling were sports I had a lot of help with, working with a good color analyst who did most of the detail work.  Not entirely proud to admit that, but proud to note that I knew what I didn't know, and picked a strategy that worked.

There's only one way to describe my one match as a mud volleyball play by play announcer: it's over now and barely remembered.

See?  The answer to the "what's your favorite sport to broadcast" question is long and winding, and in the time I fully explained myself you would have a clock but no audience left.

And I wouldn't have even gotten close to explaining the in and outs of broadcasting mud volleyball.