Posts Tagged ‘Voices’

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…

It is one thing to verbally recount what viewers just saw on their screen; it is an entirely different thing to narrate—paint a word picture—that which listeners depend on the broadcaster to pluck from the ether and make real.  It is remarkably easy to be sloppy and boring when broadcasting a game on television—the images speak for themselves.  With radio, however, the broadcaster creates those images and the world in which they exist. That is why I will always be a fan of radio play-by-play broadcasters… Thus, for the past ten years, we in Orange Nation have depended upon Bob Kesling to paint those pictures and to create those images—he has been the one to guide us through every play of every game.  On the whole, I have to say that Kesling has done a good job.  While I will be the first to admit that Kesling’s early broadcasts seemed to me a bit “sterile” and deadpan, over the past decade he and his gameday cohorts have steadily improved and I think they do a fine job of broadcasting Tennessee Football.  Suffice it to say that I listen each week, even if the game is on television or even if I am in Section Y7 watching it for myself. This decennial milestone, however, is less about the ten years that Kesling has served as the chief broadcaster for Tennessee, and more about the man he replaced.  I still can hardly believe that it has been ten years since last we heard the inviting and familiar baritone sounds of John Ward as the “Voice of the Vols.” Though Bob Kesling does a fine job, I still miss John Ward. [caption id="" align="alignright" width="148" caption="John Ward & Lowell Blanchard"][/caption] John Ward served as the Voice of the Vols in some capacity from 1963 until 1998, starting out as the host of the Tennessee coaches shows and as the PA announcer in Neyland Stadium.  Ward first began Vols play-by-play announcing when he began broadcasting Tennessee basketball games, along with the late Lowell Blanchard, in 1965.  Then, in 1968 veteran Vol Network broadcasters George Mooney (who started the Vol Navy) and Bob Fox decided to pursue other endeavors, paving the way for Ward and color-commentator Bill Anderson to assume their position behind the microphone. I first heard Ward when he broadcast the now legendary 1985-86 Sugar Bowl—where an underdog Tennessee Volunteers squad bested the No. 2 Miami Hurricanes by 28 points.  That game was, and remains, one of the most significant Tennessee football games of all time.  Ward, however, made it even better.  After hearing just one broadcast by John Ward it is fair to say that I was hooked. After that first experience, I could be found crowded around a radio whenever the Big Orange took the field.  I longed to hear John Ward and Bill Anderson relay the plays to me and the thousands of others out there in their own distinctive style.  To this day, I am a religious believer that if I am watching Tennessee play on TV, the sound goes off and the radio turns on.  However, in the era before satellite radio and internet webcasts, tuning in the Vol Network from my hometown of Asheville, North Carolina was not always an easy proposition.  There was no Vol Network affiliate serving my area.  Still, I found that if I was lucky, and if the game was at night (when the ionosphere makes radio signals carry farther) I could pick up the scratchy signal of the broadcast emanating from a station near Murphy, North Carolina.  Though my mother thought I was crazy constantly trying to tweak the radio to get just a bit more clarity, I always tried to find the broadcast.  She also thought I was about half-cracked when, as a student at Tennessee, I figured out a way to mount a tiny radio inside my marching band hat while I was in the Pride of the Southland, thus enabling me to listen while in the stands.  John Ward made it worth my while. [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="John Ward & Bill Anderson host the "Kickoff Call-in Show" in 1997"][/caption] To this day, I am still a dedicated Vol Network listener and always have my earphones with me when sitting in Neyland Stadium. From 1986 to 1998, I listened to as many broadcasts as possible.  I learned a lot about the game of football, about Tennessee, and about communicating an image.  I learned that often I could see the game better with my eyes closed and my ears open.  John Ward’s words became my eyes, and they never saw things as clearly as they did when he was painting the picture word by word.  I learned that Tennessee football was as much John Ward as John Ward was Tennessee football.  I learned that a true professional needs no introduction, no pomp, and no showy entrance.  I learned that class is a commodity not often found among broadcasters.  I learned that mistakes in public are not a bad thing if you can have a good laugh about it. [caption id="" align="alignleft" width="220" caption="Cartoon of Ward from 1998"][/caption] Both prior to his retirement at the end of the 1998-99 basketball season and since that time, I have been fortunate enough to have the opportunity to speak with John Ward on several occasions, and found him to be every bit as genuine and every bit the gentleman he was on the radio.  For me he truly was—and remains—the voice of Tennessee.  He told us the story and let it unfold across the airwaves.  He not only told us what was happening, but he managed to make it real, to make the excitement palpable. Now, it has been ten years since he last sat behind the microphone in the communications center which bears his name inside the pressbox of Neyland Stadium.  Though this is difficult for me to imagine, I am sure there are many Tennessee fans today who have never heard Ward’s broadcasts and some who may not even know who he is.  On some level, that is very sad for me.  Yet, traditions are made over time, and each generation has a hand in forming and re-forming those traditions.  They are not static.  For me as a child and a young man, John Ward was a tradition.  Over the past ten years, however, Bob Kesling, Tim Priest, Bert Bertelkamp, and  Mike Stowell have started a new tradition for the Vol Network, one which I am sure in years to come will be remembered just as fondly as I remember Ward’s. Still, as we prepare for the 2009 football season, on the cusp of a great undiscovered country, the hopes of the future, it seems only appropriate that we look back ten years and remember the man who came into our ears, into our homes, into our lives to bring us the story of Tennessee.  That past is prologue for the future to which we all look. In recognition of this little reminiscent look back, I have put together a little soundboard of a few of John Ward’s memorable calls and catchphrases.  I plan on finding a permanent home for this soundboard here at the Gate, but for now, here are “21 Things” from the John Ward Era that still make me smile. Rest assured, I’ll be listening this fall from my perch in the North Endzone, from my home in North Carolina, or wherever else I might find myself on a gameday.  That is the primary reason why I own an XM Satellite Radio.  Yes, I still listen to the Vol Network every chance I get. So here’s to all the folks at the Vol Network for giving me and countless other Vol fans across the globe a reason to tune in.  Thank you for giving that experience to all of us who wear the orange.  Thank you for building and maintaining that wonderful tradition… …and a special thanks to the man who started that tradition for me: John Ward. -- So it goes …

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Image(s) Courtesy of:    UT Sports.com / the Vol Network •  Unofficial John Ward Page •  Knoxville News Sentinel ||  Statement on Fair Use

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.

Make no mistake, the "Good Old Days" were rarely as good as some would have us believe. Still, within the confines of the world of college sports, there are parts of the past which are worth preserving. In our TV-dominated sports world, the radio has become antiquated. There was, however, a day when the radio was the only way for the vast majority of fans to follow their favorite team - or any team at all, for that matter. When my Father was growing up, there were three channels on the television, and each of those channels carried one game a week. When my Grandfather was growing up, television didn't even exist. In that sense, my Grandfather embraced "wireless technology" almost seventy years before I got my first wireless enabled laptop. My wireless connects me to the internet via a router; it has keys and an LCD monitor. My Grandfather' wireless had a dial and a the ability to pick up a static-ridden signal that bounced around the ionosphere and brought with it a world beyond the confines of the mountains of Western North Carolina. To this day, my Grandfather still has a battered old radio next to his bed so he can "listen to his ballgames."

Larry Munson is one of the few remaining patriarchs of the golden age of college sports radio broadcasting. He has been broadcasting Georgia games since 1966. Up until the last season, he had missed only one football game in that time. This past year, due to debilitating arthritis and back problems -which made travel, and at times even walking, extremely difficult for the 85 year old -- Munson only broadcast home games from Athens, leaving the road games to younger men. Mississippi State's salty and sarcastic Jack Cristil has been at it even longer than Munson, having begun his stint behind the microphone in 1953. Up until 2006, Max Falkenstein of Kansas had been broadcasting for an unbelievable 60 consecutive years. Falkenstein had been broadcasting so long that, when dubious clip of him calling the final game of Kansas' last undefeated basketball season appeared on the internet, that I'm sure some thought it was some probably thought it was authentic ... despite the fact the game was played in 1909. This select band of broadcasters served as the eyes for fans all across the country, and in their heyday every school had its own "voice" which was as unmistakable as the mascot and the school colors.

Of course, most schools still have their radio voice, but increasingly those broadcasters serve as more of a PR rep for the athletic department than a true sportscaster. The broadcasters of yesteryear were as numerous as they were idiosyncratic and distinctive. Every school had one, and each broadcaster had his own style which set him apart from the others. There was the friendly conversation with Cawood Ledford (Kentucky), the pristine enunciation, emphasis, rhythm of John Ward (Tennessee), the complex imagery of Al Ciraldo (Georgia Tech), the warbling and swooping voice of Bob Fulton (South Carolina). The voices of Jim Phillips (Clemson), Otis Boggs (Florida), Stan Torgerson (Ole Miss), Jim Fyffe (Auburn), John Forney (Alabama), Paul Eells (Arkansas), John Ferguson (LSU), and of course the gravelly and bombastic sounds of Larry Munson (Georgia) carried the gospel of college sports to fans and alumni all across the country. What's more, in an era before the preening primadonnas of ESPN, the college radio broadcaster was also listened to by a wider audience -- including those who didn't even have a dog in the fight. They were the voices that painted the pictures and brought games into living rooms, cars on the road, backyards, and businesses all across the country.

Today, for most folks, the idea of just listening to the broadcast of an affiliated college radio network - other than the one for their team - is foreign. Today, it is the tame and tidy world of "made for TV" sports that most appeals to people. I suppose that isn't necessarily a bad thing. As a general proposition, most television broadcasters are more objective and balanced than university-affiliated radio broadcasters - especially in the case of the decidedly partisan Munson, who typically refers to the Bulldogs simply as "we" or "us" ...

... or did the great college radio broadcasters simply not try to conceal their bias. (yes, Bill Curry, I'm talking to you...)

Furthermore, in most cases, television has a much more polished delivery; there really isn't much to argue about there. Yet, in the world of sports - at least the world of college sports - isn't it supposed to be just a little rough around the edges?

In defense of the sports viewing audience, the great personalities are largely a thing of the past, and college sports radio is much less interesting. Now, it seems that most affiliated radio broadcasters try very diligently to emulate the style of television broadcasters. They focus on speaking clearly (something no one ever accused Munson of doing), in simple evenly modulated sentences (avoid the high end near-screaming of Woody Durham of UNC), and try and make things very ... "sterile."

White bread, rice with no butter, just like the lay of the land in the Midwest - really flat, really boring, and goes on forever...

Oh, I am not trying to be overly critical of the current generation of college radio sportscasters. Some are quite good - even showing moments of brilliance - but they are somewhat hamstrung by the expectations placed upon them by their schools, their image conscious alumni, and the media in general. A great example is the current Voice of the Tennessee Vols, Bob Kesling - who enters his tenth year in that role in 2008. After taking over from the legendary John Ward in 1998, I didn't like Kesling all that much, despite the fact that I had watched him on, then, JP Sports broadcasts as well as Knoxville Channel 10 Sports for several years, and like his work. Kesling, however, has really grown into his role as a dedicated radio broadcaster. Along with color-man Tim Priest for football, the Vol Network really puts together some top flight coverage. With each passing year that Kesling calls games on the radio, he seems to develop a little more of a persona, he seems more comfortable, and the energy level of the broadcasts increases.

Bearing that in mind, in case any of you satellite radio executives are reading out this, the fact that Sirius carried the Vol Network was the only reason that I purchased my first satellite radio in 2004. In 2007 Tennessee switched over to XM, and that move was the only reason I bought an XM unit (like I really needed two different units on two different networks, I mean they play the same damn music). While the days of the little 500 watt stations dotting the countryside sending the signal out to each little town across the south, without competition from television will never return, the advent of satellite radio may, very well, bring the world of great college broadcasting back into our homes. With a near limitless medium -- which is what everyone says satellite radio is -- there is no reason that every college radio broadcast can't go all across the country, and beyond.

Still, I have such fond memories of listening to John Ward announcing the Tennessee games. With Ward, I learned that often I could see the game better with my eyes closed and my ears open. John Ward's words became my eyes, and they never saw things as clearly as they did when he was painting the picture word by word. I learned that a true professional needs no introduction, no pomp, and no showy entrance. I learned that class is a commodity not often found among broadcasters (just watch to ESPN on any given night). I learned that mistakes in public are not a bad thing if you can have a good laugh about it. There was nothing quite like hearing "Give him SIX!!" and the oft imitated "It's Football Time in Tennessee," and I will always miss that. To you lucky fans who still have one of the greats behind the microphone, allow me to give you a little piece of friendly advice ...

...cherish your opportunities to tune in and watch with your ears.

Georgia, you better enjoy your chances to dance with "Lady Luck and her Hobnailed Boot." You folks in Starkville, enjoy those "drives of the game ..." including the one back "home from Starkville to Tupelo," while you still can. Yes, and you Smurfs in Chapel Hill (yeah, yeah, I know I went to school there too, but it was "trade school") take advantage of your opportunities to "go where you go, and do what you do, and may all of your skies be Carolina Blue."

At any rate, I sincerely hope that Larry Munson, Jack Cristil, Bob Harris, Woody Durham, Gene Deckerhoff, and the other remaining legends of the airwaves keep at it as long as they can. Speaking from personal experience, once they are gone, it just doesn't seem the same for a very long time.

I suppose this terribly long, sappy, and sentimental journey into the past needs to be cut off at some point, so I'll end it here. That said, given my penchant for "collecting" things (See my Tennessee Home for the Visually Offensive) I have some plans to create another museum of sorts here at Gate 21 -- one which will put some of the magic of these great college broadcasters on display for a little while longer. Thus, if you have any good clips for posting, feel free to email me, and I'll find a good place for them where they can be appreciated.

In the meantime, I'll leave you with a little montage I managed to put together from a few select clips I found. The sound quality isn't always that great, but maybe, just maybe, it might make you smile, make you laugh, or bring back a few memories...

[audio:/Voices.mp3]

Yes, that is the true voice of college sports...

-- Go Figure …

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Images: (from top to bottom) Larry Munson (Online Athens/Banner Herald); Jack Cristil (MSU); Max Falkenstein (ESPN); Al Ciraldo (GTAlumni.org); Cawood Ledford (ESPN); Jim Fyffe (AU); John Ward (UT); Woody Durham (Raleigh News & Observer) Audio: Kentucky Sports Network; Vol Network/Host Communications; Maroon to the Max/MSU Radio Network; Tarheel Sports Network/Vilcom Communications; Florida State Sports Network; Auburn University Radio Network; Georgia Sports Network; LarryMunson.com; SixPackSpeak.com; UKThunder.com; Alabama Radio Network

* Disclaimer: All Audio Clips remain the property of the licensing authority and their respective universities and/or institutions. Gate 21 makes no claim of ownership as to these clips, and they are displayed on this website for the sole purpose of entertainment and social value. Any questions or concerns regarding the display of such audio should be directed to the administrator of this site.