Last night I auditioned for the job of New Hampshire Fisher Cats' Public Address announcer. I am happy and proud to report that of the ninety-two people who showed up to audition, I made it to the top ten. However, I did not make it to the top five, which I had been hoping for.
All in all, it was a good experience auditioning. I went into the audition not knowing exactly what the Fisher Cats' management was looking for in a public address announcer, and hoping that they would be looking for someone like me, who can do a professional job without sounding like a yahoo. I was worried that the club would follow a troubling trend in professional sports: artificial stimulation of the crowd by annoying, grating announcers. Would they be looking for someone like that, or someone like me, who is professional, composed, and above all has an awesome voice?
I had had some bad experiences with public address announcing. In 2000, while working and living in Albuquerque, New Mexico, I received a call from the Sports Information Department at the University of New Mexico. One of their interns, a twenty-something female student, called me and asked if I would be interested in auditioning to be the PA announcer at the women's soccer games. She had heard me on a local radio station and thought my voice would sound good at the stadium. She asked me to show up at an upcoming women's soccer game so I could give it a try. Thinking this would be a great opportunity to get my foot in the door at a Division I college, and increase the possibility of perhaps someday announcing a football men's basketball game, I accepted the offer to try out.
The game was on a Sunday morning. At the game were only about seventy-five or so fans, mostly made up of friends and family of the players, a piddling crowd which made the university's football stadium look virtually empty. They asked me to make a few announcements at halftime, which I did in my normal voice. I thought I sounded good. My voice resonated throughout the empty stadium: I was crisp, clear and appropriate, or so I thought, for the small crowd that had showed up on a Sunday to watch women's soccer. I was pleased with my efforts.
A couple of days later, I called the woman in charge of my audition. She tells me that she won't be needing me anymore, because I "didn't have the enthusiasm" they were looking for. I though, you have to be kidding me. Enthusiasm? For a Sunday morning? In an empty stadium? For women's soccer?
I should have let her have it. I should have told her that she was what was wrong with sports today--this insistence that public address announcers conduct themselves like buffoons in a phony effort to "hype up" the crowd. What did she expect? That the seventy-five people in attendance were all just sitting there thinking, "You know what this game could use? An announcer who tells me when to cheer and that I should be excited for this game." Such trends are among the worst in sports, and seem to take on certain levels of absurdity, especially when considering that the stadium was empty that morning.
But I didn't say anything. I told her thank you and hung up.
So, entering last night's audition, I had prepared for the worst. I was going to be true to myself, but I was not going to sell out. If artificial buffoonery was what they wanted, they weren't going to get it from me. I would be straight and true to the principals I believed in. I would not sell out. I would make the announcements the way I felt was appropriate, and if the Fisher Cats didn't like it, they could just tell me to go home.
Luckily, when asked to recite a short announcement, I drew one that did not require a lot of flash and pomp. It was about concession stands. I was the thirteenth person to audition, and I was very pleased with how I sounded on the microphone. Once it was over, a feeling of relief had come over me. I knew I was good, that I should make it to the next round, but most importantly, I was able to make the announcement being true to what I believe a good PA announcer should sound like.
A lot of the ninety-two participants did seem to think that the Cats were looking for a buffoon. Many in the first round rearranged the script to sound "funny" and "cute." To my delight, and moderate surprise, not many of those people made the second round. A couple of folks went way, way overboard with their announcements, (screaming, growling, inciting the crowd to violence--that sort of thing) to the extent that I was ready to cancel my season tickets should any of these idiots be considered for the later rounds. To my satisfaction, these jerks were cut. When the first cuts were made and the field was pared from 92 to 18, most of the eighteen had been ones who didn't mess around. I was supremely gratified to be among them.
After I made the top 18, I knew I was going to make it to the top 10. The second round of auditions called for a longer announcement, which was right up my alley. I knew I would nail it, and I did. I sailed into the top 10. Now I was excited, and I began to think that I might just have a chance at getting this job.
The third round came quickly, and I had a decision to make. The audition called for each of the final ten to write something of their own, anything to "show the club my personality." It could have been a poem, a scene from a movie, anything. I decided that if I had made it this far on the strength and professionalism of my voice, I would go for the kill with another bona fide, no-nonsense ballpark announcement.
The problem was, I went second in the round of ten. The first girl, a Memorial grad with a killer body, went up there and spoke of her love for baseball and how much fun she thought the Fisher Cats games were going to be. She had a great voice but I was surprised that she went off-the-cuff like that. I didn't think we were allowed to do that. I considered a last minute change from what I had written to taking the mike and pontificating about what I think a true PA announcer should sound like. But I decided to stick with what I had written.
I read a pre-game announcement with made-up starting line ups for the Portland Sea Dogs and New Hampshire Fisher Cats. I wanted to put the judges in the seats at Gill Stadium, listening to a professional PA announcer. I once again thought I sounded great.
In the end, I didn't make the top five. I was disappointed. If I made a mistake, it was perhaps not showing quite enough "personality" in my third announcement. But what are you going to do? Of the five that made the final cut, I can honestly say that four of them are excellent choices. The fifth was this other woman who sounded like she was doing an infomercial every time she made an announcement, but in her final audition, she took the mike and sang a song she wrote for the Fisher Cats. I guess that won the judges over. Oh well.
I was thrilled to make the top ten, and I have no regrets. I was true to myself and what I believe in. I feel extremely vindicated that the Fisher Cats, at least for the first two rounds, saw things the same way.
Friday Night Lights fans, here it is, my pregame report for tomorrow night's BG-Central game, delivered to you 26 1/2 hours early. If you can't get enough of the show's host, Mike "Mut Man" Mutnansky,
click here and check out his blog. It's a little, er, a lot more professional than this one.
Bishop Guertin of Nashua enters tonight’s game with a record of 9-4, a solid season by anyone’s standards, but the month of February has not been kind to the Cardinals, having lost four of five games since the month began, their only win coming against Pembroke at home, eighty-five, sixty-two Tuesday night. Their four losses come to Dover, Nashua, Merrimack and most recently Winnacunnet, whom they faced on the road Wednesday night and were obviously tired playing two nights in a row, sixty-nine to forty-five was the final. Six-six senior Rob Getek had 14 points in the loss. It doesn’t get any easier tonight for the Cardinals, as they play their third game in four days; they’re on the road in Manchester to face the number two team in the state, the Little Green of Manchester Central.
The slide comes at the worst time of the year for Bishop Guertin, and head coach Al Francouer, a team that started out on fire, winning their first eight. As it stands now, the Cardinals are in 6th place, an although they are in a solid position to clinch a home playoff game, they enter their final four games needing desperately to regain the momentum and confidence they had in their first eight, so they can make a serious run at going deep into the playoffs.
As for Central, they’re heading into an opposite direction from the Cardinals, they have now won nine in a row after an exciting win in Salem, sixty-one, fifty-two over the Blue Devils. They are eleven and one and basically, at this point, just getting ready for the playoffs. Their final four games feature road games at Pinkerton and Winnacunnet, and home games against Dover and the season finale two weeks from tonight against Nashua. All four games with the exception of Pinkerton should be good tests for this Little Green club, but nothing that they can’t handle, they could very well enter the state tournament at seventeen and one, and then the whole state will be looking ahead for a Trinity-Central matchup at the Whittemore Center one month from today.
Until then, we still have some basketball to play. As for tonight’s game, for Bishop Guertin to pull off the upset, they are going to have to put a stop to the two big guys from Central, sophomore Tyler Roche and big senior Sam Carey, who together were fantastic against Salem on Tuesday, especially on defense, their rebounding a big factor in holding off the Blue Devils. Carey, as I reported last week, had a monster game against Alvirne, lead his team with 24 points, but more importantly had a slam dunk late in the first half which was a real momentum builder for his team, he also blocked shots that went into the seats and was a dominant force as always on the boards. Roche, for good measure, poured in 20 of his own against the Broncos. Guertin will have to rely on Getek and Zack Zoia to score a lot of points, Tim Genest will have to be hot from behind the arc as he was against Pembroke, when he had all nine of his points on treys.
One of the great things about keeping this blog is that I am able to archive my thoughts, and, more importantly, have proof that I thought these thoughts at the time the actual entry is stamped. So often I read a sports opinion or commentary two days after I thought the original idea.
This is one of those times.
Check out today's column by Dan Shauhgnessy of the Boston Globe, and then scroll down to my entry from
three days ago. Did I not make similar, if not identical, claims that Shaughnessy does in today's column? Granted, John Henry's asinine comments yesterday about a salary cap were the catalyst for Shaughnessy's column this morning, but . . . you heard it here first.
Tomorrow night for Friday Night Lights, I will be covering the Bishop Guertin (9-4, 6th) at Central (11-1, 2d) game. My preview should be posted as early as tonight, but check back in tomorrow.
Before I get started, Walt writes back concerning the Karate Kid and the A-Rod deal.
You know it's kind of funny that the bad-ass bullies weren't the football players of the school. No, they were the karate students of a local dojo - which by the way, probably had students who went to other schools than Daniel and Johnny's. I can see how you could make friends through a dojo, but to become the school studs? I don't get it.
I also liked what you said about the A-rod deal. It pisses me off that someone can make $252 million just to put on cleats and play baseball. But, I guess if people are willing to pay it there's nothing wrong with it. What I liked about what you said was that Boston has no room to complain. That this doesn't garuantee a Yankee victory. After all the last two WS champs were the Marlins and Angels (as you said), and I'd like to follow up that point by saying that Alex didn't do squat for the Rangers as a team. So, quite whining - Boston (and everybody else) and just play baseball!
Palms wrote in last week with regards to the Sagarin ratings. They have changed since then, and we'll take another look at them later today. Tonight it's Nashua at Dover in Class L basketbizzle, and you can see the
Sportswriter to Be at the game.
By the way, we're now being picked up by Google. Go to Google and type in "Sportswriter2b" and see what you get.
*****
I took a look at the Sagarin ratings today.
North Carolina is home to the best (Duke) and worst (NC A&T) team in College
hoops.
What would the Cheif say about 1-17 Citadel (312)? Probably not much, but
it wouldn't be good.
Along with the Citadel, VMI (317), Army(323) and Navy (325) rank as some of
the worst teams in the NCAA. If Bush loses his mind and decides to settle
the Iraq situation with a B-Ball game, we'd better rely on #32 Air Force.
The highest ranked small programs A-10's St Joe's (3), WCC's Gonzaga (4)
and the VALLEY's Southern Illinois (22)
The lowest ranked "big" programs Big 12's Texas A&M (200), C-USA's Tulane
(219) and the whipping boy of the Big 12, Baylor (256)
UNH still above 300.
Palmer
Don't know what to make of the Alex Rodriguez trade they Yankees pulled off this past weekend. But I will say this: no Boston fan has the right to bitch and moan about baseball's economic structure at this point. Every single one of them would have been happy if Arod had come here. So none of this "oh, the Yankees have everybody" or "this is bad for baseball" crap from Boston fans, please. A fan of any other team, or just major league baseball fans in general, they have a legitimate beef at this point. But you won't hear that coming from me. The Red Sox had a chance to get Arod, but decided he was out of their price range. I am just surprised that at no one in the Red Sox organization had to have said, hey, look, if we don't pony up the dough, the Yankees will. That's the way the Yankees operate. They wouldn't have gone after Arod if the Sox hadn't. This is just their way of saying, ha-ha, look what we did and you couldn't! And that's the edge the Red Sox seem to be missing, that killer mentality.
I like
Ryan's column where he compared the Red Sox and Yankees position-by-position, and had the Red Sox coming out on top. I will repeat what I said to you on the phone on Saturday: Arod is not a proven winner. And the last two WS Champions are the Marlins and Angels, no big name stars on either of those teams. So it is up to the Sox to just shut the hell up, then go out there and BEAT THE YANKEES. Hey, let's face it, they're both going to the playoffs and barring a complete flop by one of the two teams, once again it will come down to a best-of-seven ALCS, and frankly, I don't know what kind of an impact Arod would have had on either team. But that's what makes sports so great.
