Gripe session: Bad PA guys

Two of the most annoying things in my life are the PA guys at a couple of the local high schools. One guy thinks he's some kind of basketball emcee. Uses lots of modifiers in his call, rambles on, feels the need to tell us it was "good effort" trying to chase down that pass that nailed the tuba player. He's especially bad for girls games. The other guy is annoying in a totally different, incompetent kind of way. Gets names wrong incessantly, comes up with the weirdest ways of identifying the visiting team, long pauses as he tries to read the names during introductions. He's a disaster. The other night, the game went OT and before OT begins he goes, "What a great way to spend an evening, watching great basketball here at Dipshit Academy." Yeah, speak for yourself, fucker.

OK. Bitching over (for now).

 

You'd think with all the PC-sensitive people roaming this planet, Dipshit Academy would have been renamed by now. ...

 

The PC Police have been busy. Budget cuts, lack of funding...you know.

 

That's no excuse. What kind of example is this sending to the youth?

 

It makes me laugh, especially during high school football, when you get one of those PA guys. Because, look what I'm doing: I'm walking the sidelines in the freezing fucking cold because A) there's no room in the press box because the local radio or TV guys are there for the first time all year and there's no room for you or B) You find it easier to count yards that way whilst keeping your box.

And I laugh as the rain, snow, sleet and/or wind, cuts through the three layers of clothes I've wrapped myself in, all the while listening to some Larry trying to act like Chris Berman. And, for some sick demented reason, I love it. Love every single second of it.

 

PA people are there doing a job, just like we are. I don't mind if they try to have a little fun. If anything, they can be good for a laugh.

 

I was at a prep football game this year where the two other guys in the press box were the announcer and the scoreboard operator.
One of the two (not sure which one because I sat in a different room as far from these idiots as I could) was almost thrown out because he kept yelling at the officials through the open window.
At one point, the ref turned around and warned him and the guys yells, "Don't worry about me. Make a damn call."
He was given a final warning and didn't yell anything else the rest of the night, but his homerism continued inside the booth.
Of course, his team was taking cheap shot after cheap shot, but somehow he didn't notice those...

 

I did a game the other night where the PA guy

A) sounded like he was announcing a monster-truck rally, with the over-exaggerated bellowing of the home team's names
B) would announce not only home team field goals, but also who pulled down a rebound while play was ongoing
C) did not announce baskets for the road team.

 

I once covered an independent league baseball team where the PA guy doubled as the beat writer for another paper. It was bad enough, but he was the biggest homer I've ever seen in a PA booth. "CHEER FOR YOUR BUMFUCK BUTTFUCKS!!! LET'S HEAR IT FOR THE BUTTFUCKS!!!" This guy bled buttfuck blue.

Then you read his copy the next day in the paper.

 

We don't have a problem with homers around my place. We just have a problem with the guy pronouncing the home team's players correctly - names he should know by heart for yelling them out for years.

We're not talking names like Kosta Koufos or Jake Tsakalidis or Nikoloz Tskitishvili or anything; we're talking Tyrone (Tee-rone) and Johnathan (Joe-nathan).

 

This is one of my pet peeves. You are the PA announcer, not a TV/radio play-by-play guy. You just give the facts: who scored, who the foul was on, who called a timeout, etc.
It's not time for your And1 audition: "Ooh, the Professor .. The PROFESSOR!"