[NU Sports] annoying fans and PA announcers

[Roy Lamberton]

At the risk of offending those who think I never have much to say....

The on the field guy is probably coming from minor league baseball, where they
have one, sometimes two or three yahoos [a guy and gal, sometimes appearing to
be refugees from the local pop music station] who run around trying to add some
"excitement" with wireless mics doing promotions, etc. Their presence is
primarily about money - the stuff they do is usually a tie-in with sponsors and
ads along the fence. 

As a bit of a PA purist, I find that stuff offensive, but then there are those
who find the pop music that I play between innings at baseball/softball games I
announce offensive, prefering the old theater organ style of music. 

Speaking from personal experience, its still possible to do a credible job at
baseball by yourself, provided you have a good computer scoring program and a
lot of pre-recorded audio. It really helps to have an official scorekeeper
sitting with you, and a scoreboard operator too, altho I've done games where I
was the only guy in the booth.

The role of the Football PA announcer has really changed lately. There's an
article that I linked a few weeks back, about the 4 other people it takes to
coordinate the activities of the PA announcer at one of the Big 10 statia, with
spotters, and stats and getting the paid for announcements done on time, a far
cry from the old "one man and an organist" PA crew at most major league games in
the past. I often thought it would be fun to announce just one NU game, to say
I'd done it, but I'm not sure you can just jump in and do that anymore.

Even the press box at a High School football game almost requires 5 people to
announce, spot, and run the scoreboard. Add coordination of things on the
jumbotron or other video, and it can get tricky.

I really like the one man on the mic idea, one of the best NFL games on TV once
was the one where they just broadcast the PA announcer after each play.

rsl


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Roy S. Lamberton - Senior Associate
Computer Applications & Support Associates
and Publisher of Purple Reign, 
The Scout.com Northwestern University Site
(http://www.purplewildcats.com)
AIM Handle: CoachRoy74

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