The Radio Campaign Continues!!
I'm still hoping I get the chance to be the color commentator/2nd announcer for Columbia football games this coming fall.
Special thanks to Bruce Wood of the Big Green Alert blog for joining the campaign and explaining that getting an annoncer with an institutional memory is very important when it comes to sports broadcasting. You can see his entire take here: Radio Days
Imagine if your favorite pro team got a new broadcasting team every year or two and those broadcasters had never really followed your team before that year. It would be frustrating, and that's what Columbia fans have had to endure for many decades now.
In order to make this happen, I'm hoping to show my broadcasting chops with a few podcast interviews that I'll make available on this blog as soon as possible. I think I've established my knowledge and interest in Columbia football, now "the powers that be" have to hear my voice and realize that I am coherent and interesting to listen to.
Jerry Recco and Rick Mantz did an excellent job for WSNR and GoColumbiaLions.com last season. But it took them awhile to get used to some of the ins and outs of Ivy and Columbia football. It would be great to avoid that "learning curve" process again next season.
BUT I NEED YOUR HELP! Please email, call, or find any other way to gently contact the athletics department and send along your endorsement. I think my best chance is a grass roots campaign. And if you have any questions you'd like to ask me about any of this, you can always email me at novak.jake@gmail.com.
FULL DISCLOSURE: A few years back I offered my services, in an advisory role only, to the student football broadcasters at WKCR. At that time, I supported the station's policy of using students only on the air. I still do, but now that Columbia has decided to use a commercial station on AM radio in addition to WKCR, I feel this is not a conflict. (I certainly don't want the 1-2 young men I advised briefly to think I was after their job).
Right now, I think having two stations covering CU football is better than one. Hopefully some healthy competition will come out of all of this and Lions fans will get an embarrassment of riches.
posted by Jake @ 2:47:00 AM
7 comments
7 Comments:
Great win at Yale last night. Let's see huge crowds close out the season next weekend.
Craig Hormann recently tore his ACL playing basketball.
I'm going to leave the previous comment about Craig Hormann up just for now, even though it CANNOT BE CONFIRMED right now. I want this to be an open forum for anyone who isn't using profanity, or unfairly attacking people, etc. If it is not true, I will take down it down immediately.
The KCR broadcasts are student activities and should remain so. For me this goes for both the play by play and color guys. It would be great, however, to have a "Jake" in the booth to complement the student announcers.
What KCR really needs are announcers who actually understand the game and can objectively ad coherently report what is happening on the field. Unfortunately, the KCR kids over the past several years have been unable to do this let alone provide any meaningul analysis.
This holds true for basketball.
Thanks for your comments.
WKCR has actually had some great announcers in the past. Some of them went on to professional broadcasting careers. But there's been a drought lately for some reason or another.
When I initially approached the student broadcasters 4-5 years ago, my intention was just to advise and maybe help them get better, (but you'd think SOMEONE over at the Journalism School would take this initiative too. Of course, they probably hate sports over there, so I'm not holding my breath). I'd still like to help WKCR, but not as a broadcaster. I think the students at that station should remain the SOLE on-air talent.
However, when Columbia decided to augment KCR with its own professional broadcast team on another station and on the Web, I decided to try to make a play to go behind the mic myself.
If WKCR is a student station, why do they have so many deadbeats on the air playing Jazz?
GOOD QUESTION! Obviously, Jazz dejays like Phil Schaap are rare indeed, but I think his angry attitude about Columbia sports is really over-the-top.
Columbia needs to use WKCR as more of an educational broadcasting tool for the students who are currently coughing up $40k+ to go there every year. I've written CU president Lee Bolinger about this numerous times to no avail.
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