If you have read any of my posts, you know that I am very thankful that we have surrounded the sports operations wing of Learfield Sports with very talented people.  From affiliate relations to traffic to our gameday folks, we have a top notch group.  

As some of you may already know, we are losing one of the people that help you the most and at the end of the day, she helps us the most, too.  Jenny Hollabaugh is moving.  Not from Learfield, but from Learfield Sports.  She’s moving up….literally, as we work in the basement level of Learfield’s building in Jefferson City and she is moving upstairs to work as an executive assistant to our CEO Greg Brown.

Jenny has work with the affiliate relations staff since she started at Learfield nearly seven years ago and personally, I’ve worked with her on the Learfield calendar, as she helps us keep up to date on schedules and game time changes and adjustments throughout the season.  I can’t say enough good things about Jenny as she has taken some pressure off all the departments. 

As our company has grown and our scheduling became all-encompassing, she took over getting all the schedules together for stations and for our traffic and daily operational staff.  It’s not an easy job as she pointed out last week, that since mid-August, she has sent out over 900 scheduling emails to stations. 

Jenny has also been our social calendar.  She organizes our little sports op parties celebrating birthdays, babies, promotions and sometimes just because it’s Tuesday.  She has become a true friend to many in our department. 

Jenny is competitive to a fault sometimes.  One year we went as a department to the Final Four in Indianapolis.  She challenged whoever she could in a competition of shooting free throws and at one point raced with one of us while we were walking to the RCA Dome to the game.  Jenny always has one goal in mind in any kind of athletic competition and that is to finish first.  Sadly for us, she usually does.

Our office area is going to be a little more quiet now and while she promises to come to the basement once in awhile, we know she’ll be very busy upstairs.  We’ve promised to invite her to all our upcoming parties, if she organizes them for us.  Jenny, please let us know when the next one is.  Congratulations and don’t forget where you started.

Learfield Sports is proud of the following announcers that work for our variety of networks that were selected for their state’s sportscaster of the year honor.  These awards are presented annually by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association.  These are guys that we work closely with and we congratulate them for their acheivement.  We list the winners below with the property they work for the state they won the award for.

• Bob Behler-Bronco Sports Properties-Idaho
• Mike Reis-Saluki Sports Properties-Illinois
• Don Fischer-Indiana University Sports Properties-Indiana
• Gary Dolphin-Hawkeye Sports Properties-Iowa
• Jim Churchill-Bobcat Sports Properties-Maine
• Mike Max and Mike Grimm-Gopher Sports Properties-Minnesota
• Mick Holien-Grizzly Sports Properties-Montana
• Jim Jeannotte-Wildcat Sports Properties-New Hampshire

This is a tale of two veterans of the broadcast booth.  One is retiring.  One is not.  Both have had great careers at their school.  Both have received accolades this football season and deservedly so. 

 One is Bob Barry, longtime voice of the Oklahoma Sooners, who announced that this year, his 50^th in the broadcast booth, would be his last.  Bob has had a long relationship with Learfield Sports, starting with the final years he was at Oklahoma State, which is sandwiched in the middle of two stints at Oklahoma. 

Bob Barry circa 2010 vs. Texas

 Bob is the consummate pro that we all hope to work with throughout our careers.  Just coming to work every fall asking, “what do you want me to do?” 

 Bob is one of the very first play by play announcers I met when I started at Learfield Sports.  Back then, Bob worked the Oklahoma State games and during basketball was the engineer, too.  Now, with new technology, he doesn’t do the engineering and he has a booth full of people helping him with spotters and statisticians and that doesn’t include commentator Merv Johnson and engineer Michael Dean.  He’s seen the business of sports broadcasting come a long way from his play by play days of Norman High School, which led to his first stint with Oklahoma. 

This year, schools in the Big 12 have been honoring Bob by putting a play on their radio networks when their team has played Oklahoma.  And the Sooner faithful honored Bob this year by at halftime of the Oklahoma-Texas Tech game and named the Press Box after him. 

Bob is retiring after the conclusion of Oklahoma’s basketball season this year.  Personally, it’s been a great pleasure to work with Mr. Barry all these years. 

 Which brings us to our second play by play announcer that recently was put in the Indiana broadcast pioneers hall of fame, Don Fischer.  Don is Indiana University play by play announcer.  He’s currently calling his 38^th season for the Hoosiers. 

 Don is “old school.”  That’s not a bad thing.   If you want to turn on the radio and know exactly what is happening and where the ball is, so you can picture that in your mind, Don is your guy.   Unlike some of the younger play by play guys coming up today looking for signature lines and trying to stand out, Don Fischer lets the Indiana Hoosiers be the star. 

Don Fischer with game winning FG vs. Purdue 2010

 Like Bob Barry, Don and I have worked together for a long time.  We took over the Hoosier Radio Network in the early 90s.  I’ve spent many a year having Don be my first phone call during the season, recording his daily show and getting the broadcast report the morning after the games.  I enjoy listening to him talk about broadcasting, because like Bob, Don started out small. 

 Listening to him describe his first play by play job in a small town in Illinois to what he has become today is what most play by play hopefuls need to hear.  You just don’t become the Voice of the Hoosiers without work. 

 This year, Indiana’s broadcasters honored Don as part of their Hall of Fame class of broadcast pioneers.  He was gracious at the ceremony and he’ll tell you it’s a big deal for him. 

These are two great play by play guys that I get to work with every day.  Bob Barry and Don Fischer stand tall in the college play by play world and Learfield Sports wants to salute both of them.

The 2010 football season is about to kick-off with games on September 2.  That means our people at Learfield Sports are braced for the onslaught of getting the product ready so your stations can sound great.  

This is my 21^st Football Season start up at Learfield.  My, how we have changed the way we do things.   At the risk of sounding old or old fashioned, 21 years ago our staff consisted of two producers, who split many jobs.  Among those are:  affiliate relations, game production, crew preparation and traffic.  We also had an office assistant that helped us as we hand-placed all spots on each network’s log and mailed them out to stations (thank goodness for technology).   That’s three people getting the games for 5 Networks on the air.

Now, our staff included 7 producers who are multi-talented, but zeroed in on specific jobs in our prep.

Matt Brown makes sure our connections for broadcast is set.  Rick Kennedy and Ben Connelly are our imaging guru’s who have developed our sound on your speakers.  Ryan Kormann and Clay Broughton make sure all commercial copy is set and ready to go.  Our broadcast manager Tom Boman has been busy with our Network General Managers, making sure everyone is on the same page.  Our affiliate relations staff (4 people that have worked hard all spring and summer getting the stations together for our product, something you will hear about from their manager, Keith Kowalski from time to time.) and our traffic staff (7 more people, led by Felicia Moore)is getting logs ready for each and every broadcast.   My job to make sure your game day experience is not just good, but the best for not 5, now, but 42 Networks and their broadcasts.  That’s not including our engineers and help we get at many of our flagships and the hundreds of people that make up our broadcast crews.  

A great number of professionals make up Learfield Sports and we all are working together to make that “sound over the speakers” something you can be proud of.   I’m proud of not just how much, but how we have grown from my first season to now.  Enjoy the games and remember, “Go (insert your school here)”!   Keith Sampson 08/09/10

One of the great things about my job is the people I get to work with.  These are people you let into your offices, living rooms and cars regularly.  Their names are familiar and often people talk about them as if they are part of their family.  I’m talking about our play by play announcers.

The National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association Hall of Fame have selected their state-wide winners of the Sportscaster of the Year.  Ten of those selections are gentlemen that are play by play announcers for Learfield Sports.   They will be listed at the end of this article, but I just want to congratulate each and every one of them publicly.

Learfield Sports, as you know, is in Jefferson City, Missouri.  My wife and I were standing in line at a Wal-Mart store and a retired couple in front of us noticed a North Carolina jacket I had on.  They were a couple from Carolina and were driving the country visiting state capitols in their RV.  They wondered if I was from North Carolina (a usual question whenever I am wearing something with the school’s logo).   I replied that no, I wasn’t from Carolina, but did work with the radio crew of the Tar Heels.  Their response was, “do you know Woody?”  A similar type of question has come from many people I’ve encountered in my 20 years at Learfield.

The fans want to know what our announcers are like.  They are just like you and me.  The only difference is their job takes them all over the country and they describe the action to you.  Sometimes we take that for granted, but it was a letter from a fan of the Missouri Tigers, who was blind,  that told me how much he appreciated the job our Missouri crew does as he listens to each and every Tiger game.  He said he always knows what’s going on in the game.  This story is repeated time and time again with all of Learfield Sports properties.

Over the years, many of our announcers have won the NSSA State award and some of the names listed below are multiple winners and some will have won for the first time….I’ve also included three others that I have worked with in the past that were also award winners this year.  Again, congratulations to all and I am proud to work with each and every one of them.

Chris Stewart-Alabama—pregame/postgame show host for Alabama Crimson Tide football, play by play announcer for men’s basketball and baseball

Don Fischer-Indiana—play by play announcer for Indiana Hoosiers football and men’s basketball

Dave Nitz-Louisiana—play by play announcer for LA Tech football and men’s basketball

Rich Kimball-Maine—play by play announcer for Maine Black Bears football

Dave Lee-Minnesota—play by play announcer for Minnesota Golden Gopher football

Mike Grimm-Minnesota—pregame/postgame host for Minnesota Golden Gopher football and play by play announcer for men’s basketball

Mick Holien-Montana—play by play announcer for Montana Grizzly football and men’s basketball

Woody Durham, North Carolina—play by play announcer for Carolina Tar Heels  football and men’s basketball

Matt Lepay, Wisconsin—play by play announcer for Wisconsin Badgers football and men’s basketball

Reece Monaco, Wyoming—play by play announcer for Wyoming Cowboys women’s basketball, pregame contributor for Wyoming football.

Larry Morgan, Iowa—20 years ago, he was color commentator for Learfield’s Iowa Hawkeye football and men’s basketball network

Bob Davis, Kansas—also a past Learfield acquaintance as play by play announcer for Kansas football and men’s basketball

Mick Mixon, North Carolina—was the commentator for Carolina football and men’s basketball and now is the voice of the Carolina Panthers

What are these guys like?  A great group of professionals who are at the top of their game….

Keith Sampson