January 28, 2004
back to you in the booth
1/28/04
While watching our beloved Heels deliver a hard-fought spankin' to the Wolfpack tonight, I was again intrigued by the presence of Doris Burke on the sidelines. As far as I know, she has become ESPN's Girl Friday on game days, working many of the ACC and Big East matchups I've seen.
Like Bonnie Bernstein at CBS and a host of other well-attired female sportscasters, she might never be allowed to do either play-by-play or color commentary for a national game. They'll let women do some roving reporting (referring to them as "analysts"), but I have yet to hear one actually call a game.
This was a sore point upstate last weekend as Alex Yong's wife Wendi is fully capable of doing the play-by-play for any college football game, including historical facts and the occasional deft turn of phrase. Truth is, besides the sparse remarks of Billy Jean King during tennis or the interstitial Up Close and Personal segments by Hannah Storm during the 1992 Olympics, we have yet to experience the true gender-busting equivalent of Howard Cosell, Harry Carey, John Madden or Frank Gifford.
It is true that most sportscasters get their jobs by having played the sport themselves on television, something very few women can claim. However, Cosell could barely throw a forward pass, and Dick Vitale had a terrible coaching record. Many sportscasters come from nowhere more special than the RTVMP department at Carolina (Stuart Scott) or that joke of a student paper over at Dook (Seth Davis).
It could be chalked up to simple xenophobia - we haven't tried a woman play-by-play announcer, and we don't feel like it - but there might be physical limitations as well. Put simply, the male voice has greater range from low to high without sounding psychotic. Certainly women are capable of 4-octave voices (I'd love to hear Kate Bush call a soccer game), but the top three octaves are usually various level of shrieking. I don't mean to sound pejorative, it's just a laryngeal thing.
If you listen to Woody Durham or Mick Mixon call a Carolina game on the radio, they provide non-stop talking with a clear dymanic range: low basso when we dribble midcourt, then a high exclamation when Raymond feeds Rashad for an alley-oop. The most memorable sports moments come from sportscasters who get so excited that they go up a few octaves (Vitale's "babeeeeeee" and Marv Albert's "Yessssssssss!") I don't wonder if a female Woody Durham, doing the same, would induce ear fatigue. I could be utterly wrong, but I think it might be tough to hear for an entire game.
If you truly listen to women in the media, most of them have husky voices that belie the occasional cigarette and Jim Beam & Coke. Listen to Lynne Russell on Headline News, Paula Zahn on CNN, or our very own Laurie Dhue on Fox - Laurie was one of the infamous low altos in the Carolina singing group The Loreleis. I think you have to be an alto to be a woman anchor; anything higher, and you have nowhere else to go.
Laurie reporting for Fox
The one thing that does strike me as subconsciously sexist about female sports reporters is their physical position relative to the men in the booth - the boys are up on high, the women are down in the trough. It's no wonder that Joe Namath thought he could sneak a quick one on Suzi Kolber; after all, she was just working the fields. It's also no wonder that the sideline reporter is always called upon to deliver injury reports on the players (something Doris Burke does all the time) - can anything be more motherly than a female voice telling us that one of our boys has been hurt but will soon feel better?
I'm waiting for the one female sportscaster that will prove my vocal theory wrong and rise up through the hierarchy to call a national game. Linda Cohn is one of my favorites at ESPN - will they ever give her, or someone without a Y chromosome, a chance?
Posted by irw at January 28, 2004 11:47 PMNot that this really refutes your point, but ESPN has had a woman call play-by-play on many "national" broadcasts of college football games, and if I recall correctly, I think it's Doris Burke. Now the games haven't exactly been your marquee matchups, but I think she is the one who has called the Division III championship game for at least the last 3 or 4 years, as an example. It ain't much, but it's a start. Also, and Chip can confirm me on this, I think Anne Myers is or was a regular play by play voice on the early-round NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament broadcasts on CBS -- though usually working the West bracket, where you wouldn't hear her too often unless you live in Boise or Missoula.
I think these are the exceptions to the rule that prove your point.
Yeah whatever, blah blah. But hey, wasn't Angela Rippon HOT!?!
"...but you tease you flirt
and you shine all the buttons
on your green shirt"
It's weird that you would write this blog just as Tennis is coming back on TV and my secret crush, Mary Carillo, is back reporting. I love watching tennis on TV more than any other sport, and there is a thing Mary does that you have to hear to understand.
Someone hits a perfect return of serve or an amazing strong forhand winner and she just gives out a little 'uh' gasp, like what just happened took her breath and pants away. She is a little bit basso profundo, but her analysis of the game, and her play by play color commentary, is the best in the game. When you add that little gasp she does, like she is living and dying by the nuances, and by the great play regardless of who is doing it, she becomes one of the best sports announcers out there.
I don't mean to nitpick, but don't you mean withOUT a Y chromosome....
Doris Burke is a player - played hoops at a D1 school in New England I think - she's a talker tho, doesn't seem to know when to stop, otherwise I do like her.
Anne Meyers and Nancy Lieberman do men's games for ESPN.
Pam Ward is probably the best known - haven't heard her do hoops, but she does D1 football games.
Sean Patrick-Um, yeah, that's what I meant. Amazing how long it took for anyone to notice. Yay for my biology AP class!
USA Today did a big story on Doris last Friday. She's done color on men's and women's games for ESPN for nearly 10 years. She does 10-15 men's Big East games on ESPN Plus every year. She was the first and only woman to be an analyst for the NY Knicks. Pretty impressive.
Unfortunately I have had to sit through too many Pam Ward-called D1 football games and she's awful. One thing she does is to support the point that a woman's voice does not have a good range for play-by-play work. Ward sounds shrill at best and shrieking at important moments. Three or fours hours of her broadcasts truly tests the loyalty for fans of the participating teams or that sport. Add that she simply isn't very knowledgeable about football and that makes an already bad broadcaster that much worse. The figuring with my buddies is if she's calling your game, you have one of the real stinkers of the week.
I'm a person who has heard on radio and viewed college football games on television for more than 60 years. I enjoy listening to Pam Ward doing college football games. As the retired Football Historian of the NCAA, I feel she's sufficiently knowledgeable about the game of football
The only thing I don't like is that many white female broadcasters, columnists, and reporters carry this "white is holier than black"
attitude especially towards minority players who have shortcomings or flaws in their personality or in their game. Yet, when it is a white player, they finds ways to cover up their shortcomings by talking about their family tree, throw the "they play hard" card, the "aw shucks" card, or they can be helped card because they feel the pressure of the white market. Only if that white player looks or acts butchy, she will not be critized otherwise.Basically, female commentators can say what they want as long as it isn't Anti-semitic or that player isn't associated with a Jewish agent.
Why do you think, commentators complain so much about agents it is not just money?The only commentator who I say is pretty objective is Pam Ward, I'm impressed with her demeanor and detail. Yet, when she hangs around the females doing women's basketball, she can get that "white is holier" attitude going at times. But when she is doing football, I like her work.