Posts Tagged ‘Broadcast’

Regardless of how things turn out for the Tennessee Volunteers this fall, the 2009 season represents so very many milestones—it really isn’t even worth the trouble to try and count them all.  There has been so much change lately and so very many new looks and faces that everything seems as if it is in flux.  Some feel this near c-change is long overdue, others decry it as a loss of tradition, others still reserve judgments and simply point to the inevitable movement of the hands of time.  Still, no matter how great the changes may be, the echoes of years gone by still ring in the air around Neyland Stadium.  Thankfully, this will never change.

In addition to all of the “obvious” landmark events that have or will occur as part of the 2009 football season, there is one more that may go unnoticed by many.  Though it hardly seems possible, the 2009 season marks Bob Kesling’s tenth year as the “Voice of the Vols.” Since the kickoff of the 1999 football opener against the Wyoming Cowboys, Kesling along with color-commentator Tim Priest, and sideline reporter Mike Stowell (who succeeded Jeff Francis in 2007), have brought the sounds of Big Orange football into our homes via the “Statewide Stadium” that is the Vol Network.

As have I pointed out in previous posts, since I was a child, I have always been a dedicated fan of live sports radio broadcasts.  I learned at an early age that television broadcasters, no matter how good they may be, simply cannot match the style, flair, color, or excitement that a gifted radio sportscaster can bring to a game.  There are few on television that come close—Ron Franklin and Mike Gottfried being pretty much the best—but even they cannot quite stay in step with the great radio broadcasters of the game.  Of course, for every Franklin and Gottfried, there are a bevy of lackluster talking suits which do little more than get in the way of the game rather than actually improving your understanding of what is taking place.

Thus is the curse of television…

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Ever wondered how they put the yellow first down lines on the field during football games on television?  No?  Well, never mind then.  If so, then here’s a little video explaining the process. It’s a bit technical, but interesting nonetheless.

The Mystery of the Yellow Line Video

• via: Fandome • NBC Sports

Just think, there is a staff of hundreds of people with millions of dollars of equipment all dedicated to making sure you don’t have to wait that extra 10 seconds to find out the down and distance.  All of it, just for you.

Do you feel the power?  Oh yeah!  Man of distinction coming this way…

I recently read a little observational piece over at Get the Picture! about legendary Georgia Bulldogs radio broadcaster Larry Munson. This article mainly referred to an article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution which mentioned that, due to health problems, Munson will not be attending the Atlanta Sports Awards Gala.

That brought back some memories …

Now — obviously — I am not really a Georgia fan, but I have a great deal of respect for Munson, not so much for his style or delivery, but because of what he represents. Munson, along with Mississippi State’s Jack Cristil, the Tarhead U’s Woody Durham, Duke’s Bob Harris, and Gene Deckerhoff of FSU represent the last of the great southern college radio announcers. I’m sure there may be a few more scattered across the country, but there can’t be too many more. They are, sadly, a group which is fading farther and farther into the past every year. I know that time presses on – that is hardly a revelation. The fact that millions of broadband denizens congregate in this place known as the blogsphere — a place which did not even exist a few short years ago — is testament to that. While I embrace the advance of technology and progress, along the way we do lose real tangible pieces of the past which are truly golden.

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