Lost In Translation By Matthew C Wallace Ever feel like you need a Masters in American Sign Language (ASL) in order to interpret the officials’ hand signals? I do…all the time. Invariably, every announcer finds themselves in a game of any field sport whereby and for whatever reason, the officiating crew is not rigged with…
Scribble and Speak By Matthew C Wallace Get your forms on, buddy! Specifically, your announcer forms for scoring a game. Really? What’s wrong with just scoring the game in a standard score book? Nothing if it’s all you have to do. Announcers have nothing to do at a game, right? The job is just so easy that…
Music and PA Announcing: Run or Embrace? By Matthew C Wallace “Hey Jim, did I just catch the F-Bomb?” Could it be true? Tens, hundreds and thousands (maybe millions if televised, billions if posted to the web) of eardrums hammer wildly to an expletive slipping in a flash through the fingers of a game crew. …
Names Are Everything By Matthew C Wallace Civilization’s primary identifiers…NAMES: France, Coca-Cola, Sony, Apple, Tom Cruise, Aztecs, Jupiter. Our singular memories are pegged with these unique tags for all things we happen to know in the universe. For me, names seem to land in the 80/20 model of my announcing world. As a PA announcer, I,…
Taking Care of the Voice By Matthew C Wallace Likely the most important article of your announcing life When I was younger (not going into which decade THAT might be), I played guitar professionally. I was in bands, composed songs and played in popular Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles venues. My guitars lived in a…
Mistakes By Matthew C Wallace Everyone Makes Them… I have never announced any event or game 100% perfectly. Never. Regardless, I expect 100% perfection. Always. If expect anything else, I will get even less than that. It is said that you are your #1 critic. In my case, no one scorns me harder than me. If I…
Warming Up By Matthew C Wallace …and I don’t mean heating up. I’m, also, not making chicken noodle soup. No, no. I mean warming up yourself for an event, game or match. Before a game, athletes warm up, right? They stretch. They run in place. They perform drills. They psyche themselves up. They review things…
Venturing Outside the Square By Matthew C Wallace I hate platitudes. “It’s ALL good.” “Everything happens for a reason.” “It is what it is.” “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” I wonder sometimes if folks spew these hackneyed expressions about, more as a reflex when they really don’t know how to respond to something…
Sit There and Shut Up By Matthew C Wallace PA Announcers, Broadcasters, Scorekeepers, and Spotters are the great observers of events and games. We plop in a chair with our jobs to do. We don’t pace sidelines, benches or dugouts. We don’t argue with officials. We don’t bounce off of walls on calls we disagree…
I Love Grapefruits By Matthew C Wallace …with neatly arranged red sprinkles all over them… Over the years, I have found more fun announcing Girl’s/Women’s Fast-Pitch Softball than, I think, any other sport. The athletes are absolutely as competitive as Boy’s/Men’s Baseball but, for me, they are more enjoyable to watch, primarily, because they are visibly…