I read an article today on Sports Illustrated's website where a writer was grading the NFL commentators for the 2006 season and it got me to thinking about the good and horribly, horribly, human atrocity, military-grade crap announcing I've witnessed.
I figured I'd skip over the old Fred Schultz and Jerry Braun days and talk about, you know, now (mainly because I imagine a good portion of you missed out on that), about the current crop of mouths-for-hire.
As I started thinking about it I quickly realized that two of the top announcers I had in mind were *gasp* female! In the NXL you have Bea Youngs, and in the NPPL, Clare Benavides does the play-by-play for their online viewers. These girls have been in the sport a long time, know the game, know the players and have the presence and wit to survive entire weekends in the booth. Clare even has to constantly field obnoxious questions via e-mail throughout her broadcast, while Bea, well, she had to put up with the 'wacky' comedic stylings of Evan Money, so I guess they're even in that regard.
Since I don't get to see the NPPL broadcasts I missed Mona Hejazi host, along with scads of other guests that roll in for a game here and there, so I was curious if any of you other kids had any favorites.
For example, when I was up in the tower during one of the NPPL events this year, Frank Connell was behind the mic for at least a game and did an outstanding job calling it. He made a boring, lower divisional game a lot more exciting than usual, and I thought how it was too bad more people weren't getting to hear that. On the other side of the coin, Matt Marshall takes some heat at times for his tame television coverage, although after speaking with him about some of that work, it seems as though he's working under some serious constraints.
I figured I'd skip over the old Fred Schultz and Jerry Braun days and talk about, you know, now (mainly because I imagine a good portion of you missed out on that), about the current crop of mouths-for-hire.
As I started thinking about it I quickly realized that two of the top announcers I had in mind were *gasp* female! In the NXL you have Bea Youngs, and in the NPPL, Clare Benavides does the play-by-play for their online viewers. These girls have been in the sport a long time, know the game, know the players and have the presence and wit to survive entire weekends in the booth. Clare even has to constantly field obnoxious questions via e-mail throughout her broadcast, while Bea, well, she had to put up with the 'wacky' comedic stylings of Evan Money, so I guess they're even in that regard.
Since I don't get to see the NPPL broadcasts I missed Mona Hejazi host, along with scads of other guests that roll in for a game here and there, so I was curious if any of you other kids had any favorites.
For example, when I was up in the tower during one of the NPPL events this year, Frank Connell was behind the mic for at least a game and did an outstanding job calling it. He made a boring, lower divisional game a lot more exciting than usual, and I thought how it was too bad more people weren't getting to hear that. On the other side of the coin, Matt Marshall takes some heat at times for his tame television coverage, although after speaking with him about some of that work, it seems as though he's working under some serious constraints.
