MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Gregory Sager]

Yeah, I just learned that an hour ago via a PM. Obviously, I didn't get a chance to hear any Wheaton football broadcasts this past season.

Wheaton screwed up that broadcasting situation, too, as far as I'm concerned. USee's experienced, polished, and professional, and nobody knows more about CCIW football than he does.

[GoPerry]

First of all, Nate Frank and Steve Thonn were awesome on the call. I turned the game on a little late and I could tell who it was immediately. It's so refreshing to have veteran guys who know the game and have great insights on the call. I am not sure why the school has turned to student announcers, especially without putting any resources toward them to train.

It's so important to train student announcers! Announcing a game well is not an easy job.

Don't I know it. Getting better at the craft is difficult without well-informed feedback, even when you're an adult with a lot of public-speaking experience. When you only have a four-year window to get better at it -- and, let's face it, I doubt that Wheaton's putting headsets on freshmen, so it's probably more like two or three years -- and nobody who knows anything about announcing is mentoring you, your chances of getting good at it in a sort of autodidactic way before graduation are not promising.

The best Wheaton student broadcasters over the years, guys like Paul Carr and Bryan Holmgren, were just plain good from the get-go. They'd either had the benefit of a high-school announcing gig or simply had a natural affinity for it.

I should add that it's not always easy to find people who are not undergraduates who can do it well, either. For the past two years I was spoiled in that North Park had a really gifted GA in the sports information department named Scot Gladstone. He arrived at NPU with a rare and exceptional background for on-air work, as he has both a trained voice (theater major at Colorado College) and prior announcing experience, and he also brought with him a strong sports background, having played football in high school, club soccer at Colorado College, and he's a serious baseball nerd as well. We plugged him in as my colorman in all nine NPU sports for which I do play-by-play (he would also handle the P.A. for player introductions before games, which he is very good at), and the quality of all of our broadcasts went up exponentially. He's back out west now, and I have no doubt that he'll have a long and successful career calling minor-league (or even MLB) baseball games on radio or TV, or perhaps doing stadium P.A. work, somewhere.

But mostly, it's potluck.

Wheaton's lucky to have Nate around. I have no idea why they don't use him all the time. He loves Wheaton basketball fiercely, and his winter evenings aren't tied down with the responsibilities of a family man. I understand the whole student-broadcasting-is-part-of-the-educational-experience angle behind Wheaton's policy of letting students do the on-air work, but if you're not actually teaching a student how to call a game or provide color, where's the education in it? Plus, as GoPerry has pointed out in the past, Wheaton puts its football broadcasts in the hands of experienced veterans such as USee and Rusty Lindsay, rather than let students do the announcing ... so why the different policy for Wheaton's other high-profile sports, soccer and basketball?

Believe me, Brett Marhanka and the Athletics dept are fully aware that some of the faithful would favor more capable regulars like Nate, Owen Handy (who did color with Nate on the Chicago game over Thanksgiving), and Rusty.  I actually don't recall Steve Thonn doing a game before but he was terrific and very natural.  Still, they've made the decision to stick with the student announcers for their reasons. 

There have been a few occasions where Nate has done color along with the student announcer and that is also a pretty big upgrade.  More of that would be welcome.  Not because the student is terrible necessarily but because Nate brings such a wealth of knowledge to the game and coaching strategy.

Also, it's not quite fair to say that no training takes place.  It does and when Brett receives feedback on the WTSN email I'm pretty sure he does a debrief with the announcers in question on the feedback.

Last, I doubt that you would get any of these guys to do all 13, 14 or so home games on a regular basis.  And not just because it's not a paid position.  Nate is pretty busy with his own business.  I'm glad he, Owen, Steve, others can pitch in when necessary.

[WUPHF]

Just an aside, I would like to see Steve and Nate reverse roles.  The both have different styles.  Also, I am still laughing about the face pass remark.  That is an instant classic.  Sageresque.

[Gregory Sager]

Believe me, Brett Marhanka and the Athletics dept are fully aware that some of the faithful would favor more capable regulars like Nate, Owen Handy (who did color with Nate on the Chicago game over Thanksgiving), and Rusty.  I actually don't recall Steve Thonn doing a game before but he was terrific and very natural.  Still, they've made the decision to stick with the student announcers for their reasons. 

There have been a few occasions where Nate has done color along with the student announcer and that is also a pretty big upgrade.  More of that would be welcome.  Not because the student is terrible necessarily but because Nate brings such a wealth of knowledge to the game and coaching strategy.

Also, it's not quite fair to say that no training takes place.  It does and when Brett receives feedback on the WTSN email I'm pretty sure he does a debrief with the announcers in question on the feedback.

Well, we've been over this ground before. I understand Wheaton's reasoning regarding the educational aspect of student broadcasting. (And I'm glad to hear that they're at least giving a modicum of training to the students, even if it isn't always apparent, and I will say that Wheaton's student broadcasters tend to be better on average than most of their peers who are calling games for other D3 schools.) I'm still of the mind that webcasts are an important showcase for a college or university in terms of both the general public and of stakeholders such as alumni and parents, so they should reflect as much professionalism as the school can afford. But Wheaton sees it differently, and that's their prerogative. I'm happy that North Park has gone the other route, not because of my ego or my bank account but because I want to see my alma mater put its best foot forward in terms of publicly accessible content. Nobody got more excited than I did when NPU got Jeremiah Paprocki, aka the Voice of Wrigley Field (the primary P.A. announcer for the Cubs), to work the P.A. for North Park football games this fall. I can only speak for myself, but when I encounter the game webcast of a school that has someone of the caliber of Jay Murry or Tim Calderwood (using a couple of non-CCIW examples) on the call it raises my opinion of the school.

Last, I doubt that you would get any of these guys to do all 13, 14 or so home games on a regular basis.  And not just because it's not a paid position.  Nate is pretty busy with his own business.

I'm sure that it's strictly a matter of my own paranoia, but I feel as though I've just been politely told to get a life.

[GoPerry]

Last, I doubt that you would get any of these guys to do all 13, 14 or so home games on a regular basis.  And not just because it's not a paid position.  Nate is pretty busy with his own business.

I'm sure that it's strictly a matter of my own paranoia, but I feel as though I've just been politely told to get a life.

Not at all GS. 

My comment comes more from how infrequently I see these guys actually attend games.  Hardly ever really.  Owen Handy was away coaching Anderson until this season so not talking about him.  But it would seem to me that those who attend all the games anyhow might be more likely to man the announcing desk regularly.

[kiko]

Yes, NPU is one of the stronger teams in the CCIW this year . . . 

57 days into the Vikings' season.  Who had the under?

[kiko]

Believe me, Brett Marhanka and the Athletics dept are fully aware that some of the faithful would favor more capable regulars like Nate, Owen Handy (who did color with Nate on the Chicago game over Thanksgiving), and Rusty.  I actually don't recall Steve Thonn doing a game before but he was terrific and very natural.  Still, they've made the decision to stick with the student announcers for their reasons. 

There have been a few occasions where Nate has done color along with the student announcer and that is also a pretty big upgrade.  More of that would be welcome.  Not because the student is terrible necessarily but because Nate brings such a wealth of knowledge to the game and coaching strategy.

Also, it's not quite fair to say that no training takes place.  It does and when Brett receives feedback on the WTSN email I'm pretty sure he does a debrief with the announcers in question on the feedback.

Well, we've been over this ground before. I understand Wheaton's reasoning regarding the educational aspect of student broadcasting. (And I'm glad to hear that they're at least giving a modicum of training to the students, even if it isn't always apparent, and I will say that Wheaton's student broadcasters tend to be better on average than most of their peers who are calling games for other D3 schools.) I'm still of the mind that webcasts are an important showcase for a college or university in terms of both the general public and of stakeholders such as alumni and parents, so they should reflect as much professionalism as the school can afford. But Wheaton sees it differently, and that's their prerogative. I'm happy that North Park has gone the other route, not because of my ego or my bank account but because I want to see my alma mater put its best foot forward in terms of publicly accessible content. Nobody got more excited than I did when NPU got Jeremiah Paprocki, aka the Voice of Wrigley Field (the primary P.A. announcer for the Cubs), to work the P.A. for North Park football games this fall. I can only speak for myself, but when I encounter the game webcast of a school that has someone of the caliber of Jay Murry or Tim Calderwood (using a couple of non-CCIW examples) on the call it raises my opinion of the school.

As you note, we've been over this ground before.  I skew the other way, and think more of a school if it is giving students a chance to try their hand at something to see if they like it.  As you know, it's a lot harder than it looks.

For the most part, schools using students in this role will get out of it what they put into it.  Provide the training/feedback/mentorship -- which sometimes can come from upperclassmen or experienced peers rather than non-student resources -- and make sure that all involved treat it seriously and professionally, and it can both showcase the school well in the community and be a useful recruiting tool for students who have interest in that experience.  And if a school doesn't do this, they kind of get what they should expect where the only benefit is to the student getting the experience.

[kiko]

And so the 1972-73 Augie team is again popping the champagne corks, as this will be the 50th straight season in which the CCIW will not have a team run the table. The losses by North Park and Carthage tonight bring blemishes to the last two undefeated teams in league play.

I'm too lazy to look this up, but it feels much earlier than usual for this annual event.  We barely made it into January.

That Augie team is getting to the point in life's arc where they should probably check to confirm the beverages don't conflict with their meds.

[Gregory Sager]

I was going to make a joke about the '73 Augie guys having their caregivers pop open the corks for them, but I figured that I could wait another year or two before I gave such a stark edge to the annual ritual.

[iwu70]

Greg, be careful now!     I'm class of '70 and can surely uncork any bottle of wine or champagne for whatever, needed celebratory purpose!     I take no meds, luckily, but did have two vaccines today, so probably won't have a tipple tonight waiting to see how I react to those. 

'70 

(I still consider myself in the "young old" as compared to "middle old" and truly "old old."  Being around students and campuses my entire career has helped me stay "young," or at least, engaged.  Luckily, I was able to continue teaching well into my mid-70s. 

Happy New Year to all the chatsters.

'70

[USee]

Last, I doubt that you would get any of these guys to do all 13, 14 or so home games on a regular basis.  And not just because it's not a paid position.  Nate is pretty busy with his own business.

I'm sure that it's strictly a matter of my own paranoia, but I feel as though I've just been politely told to get a life.

Not at all GS. 

My comment comes more from how infrequently I see these guys actually attend games.  Hardly ever really.  Owen Handy was away coaching Anderson until this season so not talking about him.  But it would seem to me that those who attend all the games anyhow might be more likely to man the announcing desk regularly.

Not sure actual attendance should be a prerequisite for announcing.  How do you know they don't watch every game? They are all available online. They seemed pretty up to speed with both teams last night.

[GoPerry]

Last, I doubt that you would get any of these guys to do all 13, 14 or so home games on a regular basis.  And not just because it's not a paid position.  Nate is pretty busy with his own business.

I'm sure that it's strictly a matter of my own paranoia, but I feel as though I've just been politely told to get a life.

Not at all GS. 

My comment comes more from how infrequently I see these guys actually attend games.  Hardly ever really.  Owen Handy was away coaching Anderson until this season so not talking about him.  But it would seem to me that those who attend all the games anyhow might be more likely to man the announcing desk regularly.

Not sure actual attendance should be a prerequisite for announcing.  How do you know they don't watch every game? They are all available online. They seemed pretty up to speed with both teams last night.

Sorry - not what I was saying.  It's not a prerequisite and I'm pretty sure they view most games online and keep up with the goings on.  I was simply expressing an opinion that someone who already attends the games in person regularly would be more inclined to agree to announcing regularly.  Just an opinion.

[Gregory Sager]

This weekend's games (all times 4:15 pm):

Saturday
Illinois Wesleyan (6-5, 3-1) @ Carthage (10-2, 3-1)
Elmhurst (10-4, 2-3) @ North Park (10-3, 3-1)
Wheaton (11-2, 3-1) @ Millikin (8-6, 1-4)

Sunday
Carroll (4-9, 1-3) @ Augustana (3-11, 1-4)

Massey sez:

Illinois Wesleyan 74, Carthage 72	IWU 55%, CC 45%
Elmhurst 79, North Park 73	EU 67%, NPU 33%
Wheaton 71, Millikin 64	WC 73%, MU 27%
Augustana 74, Carroll 68	AC 70%, CU 30%

[Greek Tragedy]

Any specific reason why there's a Sunday game?

[Gregory Sager]

Augie has a large multi-school wrestling meet scheduled for Carver Center on Saturday.