Coach's Corner
As the NBAplayoffs wind toward their conclusion, Coach is struck by how bland the announcers still are.
By Andy "Coach" Cotton, Fri., May 18, 2001
As with any decent high, the better the buzz, the worse the crash. Instead of being ejected on the side of a road, I'll find myself, with no warning, dumped into the middle of a Texas summer: a grim thought which even now fills me with an overwhelming sense of dread. This reminds me to speak with my psychiatrist about upping my daily Wellbutrin intake. I'm a frightened man.
We all like to bitch about how we could do other people's jobs better than they do. Advancing age puts a certain perspective on this unflattering element of the human condition. Older folks covet less: We know our place. Not only could I have never been a hockey player, but Mike Modano could easily be my son. Mike Dell and Paul Allen wouldn't have spent two frustrating days wandering in NBC's worthless Web site looking for the proper spelling of Ahmad Rashad. They're much smarter than I am. But how about Ahmad himself? His job's a little more up my alley. How hard is it to chat with your friends for a few minutes and then say, "And now for a report from Portland, here's Hanna Storm"?
Indeed, I once mocked Ahmad. Until, that is, I was handed my own stepping stone to media glory. My "audience" for my little sports talk show probably numbered 10 … on a good day. Still, it's one thing to yell at Ahmad on the TV screen, but another thing entirely to realize you're sitting alone in a tiny, hot room -- except for a supportive but bored producer -- with a big microphone in your face. The radio station, all 50,000 watts of it, needs -- no, goddamn demands! -- that you start talking, babbling, whatever, to fill 38 minutes of precious airtime. Quite humbling. NBC never called.
This said, with the full understanding that I could never have flown an airplane, piloted a tug, or discovered a disease, there's one profession I can say -- without hesitation -- that I can do. I could be a TV critic.
This entire column might seem like a directionless ramble to nowhere, but I assure you, it's directly on point. I can write. I watch TV. Lots of it. Particulary sports. This is, after all -- as I'm frequently compelled to remind my wife -- my job.
Next week I'll play TV critic and do an exhaustive rundown on the NBA playoff crews on cable, and on the Big Cheese at NBC. I'll end this column and start next week's with Charles Barkley. Barkley works over at TNT on cable. His first television efforts last year were painful to watch. But he grew fast by listening to the best advice a stranger could give a disconsolate man he'd never met before in his life: Be yourself. This he's done to an admirable degree, a subject better discussed next week.
Rudy Martzke, who writes a daily column for USA Today called "Sports on TV" (another job I could do), reports on a big media squabble between Sir Charles and the network executives at the Peacock. Barkley is typically candid in offering his version on why he bolted from a job doing studio analysis on NBC's posh set for a few dollars more at TNT. It's surprising, the way NBC tosses around cash, that it would be outdone by a couple of zeroes, but Barkley says it's not about the money.
Ordinarily when an athlete says anything about it "not being about money," tell the kids to look away and hold your wallet. A more shameless lie would be hard to find. But when Barkley says he has plenty of money, I believe him. He just came to the rational conclusion that he'd have more fun and freedom over at Turner. Only in the world of big-time media would a self-evident statement like this stir up controversy.
NBC is righteously indignant over any implication of a muzzle on any of their on-air talent. Big Boss Dick Ebersol claims "all its analysts have complete freedom to say what they think." To this I can only note they don't "think" like Charles. Just last night Barkley commented, not once but twice, "how far up Peja Stojakovic's ass" Rick Fox was playing. Jesus, what a priceless moment that would've been on the "NetZero at the Half" set. Ahmad would've been stunned as senseless and mute as a cow that had just been clobbered over the head with a sledgehammer.
If you've only watched one segment of TNT's halftime show, you've seen how the next sentence out of Charles' mouth will always be a surprise … often a shocking one. He'd be as out of place at the network desk as I'd be as a Navy Seal. Barkley might well have been fired from NBC after one Sunday.
But what a grand Sunday it would've been.
