Adventures in Radio

First, some background. About a year and a half ago, I expressed some rather strong opinions about Trey Bender, who had just taken over as the play-by-play announcer for the Chicago Fire on Fox Sports, in an online forum. To put it mildly, I didn't particularly care for him. This caught the attention of the Fire's Director of Marketing (and now Assistant General Manager) Steve Pastorino, and the next time I saw Steve, he remarked on it. Upon reinforcing my stance, he asked if I could do better. I said yes. He said to make him a tape. I, temporarily at least, chickened out. In my mind, I was an analyst, and play-by-play is considerably harder. When the TV job was open in the offseason between 2001 and 2002, and opted not to throw my hat in the ring.

Then the Fire announced an English-language radio deal, and I expressed interest in color commentary to accompany PBP man Chris Doran. What I found, however, was that putting together a tape just for analysis is tough, because in an ideal world, you need someone calling the game alongside you. Creating instant rapport along with insight seemed tough given the logistical limitations of practicing (although considerable thanks go to Mike Squire for trying), so I wound up working on games by myself, and sent a tape to the Fire.

The knock on the door first came when I returned from the World Cup in Korea. The Fire were playing Morelia in a tournament, and Doran couldn't make it to Mexico, could I fill in? Unfortunately, I had a prior commitment that I couldn't get out of on short notice, and I prayed that wouldn't be my only shot. It wasn't. How about August 18th in New England? TV announcer Darrian Chapman was unavailable, so Chris was doing the TV call. Perfect.

About a week and several conference calls later (including one uncomfortable moment where Chris Doran "recognized" me from BigSoccer, where I may have been somewhat critical of him), I arrived in New England. Injured Fire defender/midfielder Evan Whitfield, who has been providing the color commentary for the broadcasts, and I sat in on the TV production meeting, then broke for a couple of hours, and it was off to the former CMGI Field, now known to all as Gillette Stadium. Insert your own close shave joke here.

While Doran's presence in the TV booth was awfully helpful for me, it had the unfortunate consequence of forcing him to deal with the pre-production for both radio and television, which caused much pre-game scrambling and a missed chance at a player interview for the halftime segment on radio. After getting some words to tape from coach Bob Bradley, we went off to our respective booths. Some words with the producer back in Aurora, some discussion with Evan about how we would start off, the intro bumper, and we're off!

Naturally, the first thing I did was trip out of the gate. I had written out a sketch of what I would open with, but the bumper ended with "and now here's the voice of the Fire, Chris Doran," or some such, so I quickly improvised, badly, that Chris was doing TV, and that I, Chris, was filling in. No jokes about getting lost trying to find CMGI, no nothing. The early going was, admittedly, a bit clunky, as I was trying too hard on a number of fronts, whether it be going to one of the four 30-second commercial spots per half, involving Evan in the discussion, or just sounding like I knew what the heck I was talking about. I also had the tape of the coach's interview cued a bit too tight, so it cut in mid-word after the first break. Moreover, I forgot the words of wisdom imparted to me by noted coach's brother and ESPN The Magazine writer Jeff Bradley. Say the time and the score a LOT. I did try, again, probably too hard, to note where the ball was on the field at all times. Describing the width of the field is remarkably problematic; with the Fire moving from right to left, is DaMarcus Beasley carrying the ball up the left side? Or the near side? Is "Chicago Fire" singular or plural?

This gig is clearly harder than it looks, given all the armchair speculation. For fun, try to describe what you're seeing in a game, especially when the play escalates in front of the net. I can't even count the number of times I just guessed at who had the ball based on where they were on the field. Fortunately, I guessed right more often than no, although Leo Cullen and Ian Fuller were giving me fits. And trying to use the captain's armband to differentiate between Carlos Llamosa and Dauda Kante, who are almost exactly the same height, wasn't quite enough. You'd think Kante would be nice enough to grab a single-digit number, but no. And my apologies to Dema Kovalenko for thinking he was Jesse Marsch helping clear a ball off the line at the end of the first half. Although apparently I wasn't the only one making that mistake.

Among all this, the important thing was to not sound flustered. Stay the course. I managed to get all the sponsors covered into the half, and we got some long commercial breaks to recover. At which point we realized the TV monitor was off in the booth, and turning that on would probably help. The halftime analysis went pretty well, and we covered some of the pre-game commercial obligations that we missed due to time constraints. It was here that I noticed that I wasn't giving the time in the game, because the clock was way off to our right. Mental notes and adjustments, another commercial break, and we're back.

One big adjustment was working with a partner. In the first half, my tone of voice wasn't really resolving, so it never really sounded like I was completing a thought. Hence, less chances to interject, which was unfortunate, because Evan's analysis was spot-on. I think I was able to do better with this in the second half, as I was starting to get comfortable, to get into a rhythm. The loosening up was made apparent by me being able to get some laughs out of Evan as well, facilitated by a referee who suddenly decided to yellow-card nearly everyone on the field, the ballboys, and the trainers. Having something gift-wrapped like that to crack wise on is how I tend to work best in any conversation, so kudos to Ricardo Valenzuela for helping me out.

Actually, I probably got too comfortable, as we wound up with a bunch of commercials piling up in the late going, but there were enough breaks in the action to get them in before the final whistle. A quick wrap-up, and we're out, packing up and heading back to the hotel. All told, we made it through unscathed, some minor flubs but no major train wrecks. My little brother made note of the three seconds of dead silence after I tried a joke in the first half, but that's probably as bad as it got. Judging by the comments I've heard back, I wasn't stupendous, but I didn't suck, which was my fear going into this. I wouldn't have pursued it unless I thought I could pull it off, but there was always that thought in the back of my mind that I'd choke. Hopefully, I've now put myself in a position to be called upon more often in the future should the circumstances allow it, and as far as I can tell, that's the case. Heck, maybe somewhere down the line, I could parlay this into an actual career move, which wouldn't suck at all. In the meantime, it was a lot of fun after a lot of work, and an awfully cool experience, so my sincere thanks to Chris Doran, Steve Pastorino and everyone else who made it happen.

Oh, yeah, and the Fire won 2-0. Did I forget to mention that?