Dont embarrass us!: The challenges of replacing a legend in the radio booth

Publish date: 2024-06-07

The Tennessee fan trucking ice into Neyland Stadium shouted some reluctant encouragement to the Vols’ new play-by-play announcer, Bob Kesling: “Good luck, Bob. Don’t embarrass us!”

Toby Rowland, after replacing Oklahoma radio legend Bob Barry, realized enjoying his dream job became easier if he avoided the sniping on message boards.

And Tony Caridi, during his first game after the beloved Jack Fleming left the West Virginia booth, was greeted by a fan’s sign that read, “Bring back Jack!”

Need proof that change is hard? Check out these play-by-play announcers who followed college icons and survived the bumpy transitions you’d expect when fans lose the decades-long comfort of familiar voices.

“Try advertising.”

Such was John Ward’s biting critique in 1979 when Kesling offered up a Lady Vols basketball tape for constructive feedback.

“I wouldn’t be in this position today without John’s guidance — and even a kick in the pants sometimes,” said Kesling, who succeeded Ward in 1999 and is now 22 years into his own run as the lead voice of Tennessee athletics.

By the time Ward retired, Kesling had built a name for himself doing Jefferson-Pilot play-by-play for SEC football and basketball broadcasts and serving as a longtime sports anchor at WBIR Channel 10 in Knoxville. Beyond professional credentials, it meant just as much that he was a Tennessee graduate and admirer of the man who punctuated Vols touchdowns with “GIVE HIM SIX!”

Kesling was an Ohio kid who became a walk-on fullback for Tennessee’s freshman team thanks to a chance encounter with then-coach Bill Battle. That scout team experience in 1972 showed Kesling wasn’t cut out for SEC football, so he became fixated on broadcasting, and Ward’s delivery was an inspiration. After watching basketball games inside the Stokely Athletic Center, Kesling would return to his dorm to watch the tape-delayed broadcasts on public television, which featured the audio from Ward’s radio call.

“You knew right then that there was something special, some great connect between John and the fan base,” Kesling said. “His flair for the dramatic, his ability to sell the moment. He knew exactly what the Tennessee fans wanted, and he gave it to them.”

When Ward needed a film editor for the “Bill Battle Show,” Kesling jumped at a role that paid him $15 per game. It was pre-VHS, so when the first quarter was done, he’d rush to have the film developed and begin splicing highlights. He repeated the pattern for the next three quarters so that all the footage was ready to tape Battle’s show at midnight.

“At that point, I wasn’t thinking about being the next John Ward,” Kesling said. “I just wanted to be the best film editor in the SEC.”

When Kesling was promoted to serve as Ward’s spotter, it began a 15-year stretch of in-the-booth learning. They sat side-by-side for the 1982 win over Alabama when the goalposts came down, the Sugar Bowl romp over Miami on New Year’s Day in 1986 and the Miracle at South Bend in 1991. Amid those memories, Kesling learned up close about the preparation that preceded each game, how Ward piled page after page of notes onto a clipboard despite 75 percent of that information typically going unused. Ward used to say, “This job is easy when things go right. You get paid for being ready when things go wrong.”

Ward had earned his law degree at Tennessee, and though he never practiced, it struck Kesling that he approached each game as if he were in the courtroom.

During the screening for Ward’s replacement, Kesling didn’t submit a resume, figuring Vols athletic director Doug Dickey would initiate contact if interested. Some colleagues advised Kesling against following a legend.

“I had more guys telling me not to take it than the ones telling me that I should,” he said.

One warning came from Ralph Hacker, who supplanted Cawood Ledford after a 39-year tenure at Kentucky. “He told me, ‘If you’re thinking about taking the Tennessee job, I’d advise you not to do it,’” Kesling said. “He said he had been miserable trying to follow Cawood because of all the criticism. He said the scrutiny would be tough, ‘because you’re not John Ward just like I wasn’t Cawood Ledford.’”

But the day after Ward called his final game — a second-round loss to Missouri State in the 1999 NCAA Tournament — Dickey summoned Kesling to his office for a 9 a.m. meeting. An offer was forthcoming.

“I had a great job with Jefferson-Pilot,” said Kesling, whose wife, Tami, ultimately convinced him to look past the enormity of replacing Ward. She reminded him about their two daughters who were in middle school at the time. “They’re gonna be outta here pretty soon,” she said, “so wouldn’t you prefer to be tailgating with them after a Tennessee game rather than being in an airport trying to get home from Gainesville or Starkville?”

Dickey became a calming influence by offering a three-year contract that assured Kesling “they wouldn’t get rid of me after one game if they didn’t like me.” The AD also advised Kesling not to fret over critics, “because the only person you have to please is me.”

Sometimes the toughest critics are the closest. After Tennessee beat Wyoming 42-17 in Kesling’s debut, he asked his daughter Allison for a critique.

Her reply? “You didn’t suck.”

“Coming from a teenager, that was probably the best I could hope for,” Kesling said.

Bob Kesling, left, stepped in for John Ward in 1999. (Courtesy of Tennessee Athletics)

Whereas the Vols were crowned 1998 national champions during Ward’s final football broadcast, Kesling has yet to preside over a magical season — though Tennessee did come one game shy (a surprising loss to LSU in the SEC Championship Game) of playing in the 2001 BCS title game. The past two decades have witnessed Phil Fulmer’s exit, Lane Kiffin’s one-year spectacle, the Derek Dooley drought, Butch Jones’ meltdown and Fulmer’s return as AD.

“We’ve had some turbulence here,” Kesling said. “I’ve never gone out of my way to pile on, but the best thing you can do is simply tell the truth.”

The coach’s show that once was taped Saturday at midnight now airs live on Sundays at 9 a.m. Among the most awkward was the late-November day in 2012 after a 41-18 loss to Vanderbilt cemented Dooley’s third straight losing season. The head coach was rumored to be meeting with AD Dave Hart before the show.

“Things were bad enough you knew it’s not going to end well,” Kesling said. “It was like 8:50, and we didn’t know if Derek’s gonna show up or not. When Derek comes walking through the door, the first thing I noticed was that his hair was mussed. And he always kept his hair neat. Then I saw he wasn’t wearing a tie and he had taken the Power-T pin off his lapel. So you knew the meeting with Hart did not go the way he wanted it to.”

Before going on air, Kesling asked, “Are you gonna be coaching this week?” and Dooley replied, “‘No, I’m not.” But with the announcement of the firing postponed until later that day, Kesling had to navigate the program delicately.

“I’ve got a dead man walking, but you don’t want to scoop your athletic director on this show,” he said. “The fact that Derek did the show at all showed me a lot about his character, because he wasn’t required to be there. He just said, ‘It was my team. I needed to take responsibility.’ That showed us what kind of guy he is.”

Kesling owns up to his own mistakes, particularly whenever someone signs their name to an email, writes a letter or takes the time to call.

“I appreciate those even when they point out that I screwed something up,” he said.

At 67, Kesling is ingrained with the Big Orange. The only worry he hasn’t shaken across two decades is a recurring nightmare in which he dreams of being stuck on the interstate in Knoxville as the radio blares the opening of a Tennessee football broadcast. That’s one reason he still arrives at the stadium nearly three hours before airtime.

Now, with his daughters typically sitting directly across the field from the Neyland Stadium press box, Kesling pulls out his binoculars before kickoff and checks to see if his two grandkids are there.

“When I came in after John, I was hoping the Tennessee fans would adjust to me and enjoy the broadcasts,” he said. “I’ve made it going on 22 years, so at least some of them have.”

Rowland recalls a winter night in the late 1980s when an ice storm knocked out electricity to his house. He held a Sony Walkman against the window. Held it at just such an angle. Held it there for more than two hours, in fact, just to listen to an Oklahoma-Missouri basketball game.

“I didn’t dare move it,” he said, “because I was afraid I was going to lose the signal.”

Most broadcasters can trace back to similar memories of static and dials, of games heard but not seen, of voices steering and informing their imagination. Rowland was among the last generation of children to grow up without cable TV offering wall-to-wall college sports coverage. Raised in Mustang, Okla., he recalled seeing only a few Sooners football games televised each season — “the Nebraska game and maybe a couple others.”

So the kid became enamored with sportscasters such as Barry, whose career spanned a half-century and earned the nickname “The Legend” from Sooners fans. When Barry retired in 2011 at 80, he left a job that many coveted. None more so than Rowland, who was then 37 and had two years of experience as a sideline reporter for the OU network.

“It’s kinda always been the No. 1 job on my dream list, but in reality, it was pretty unlikely that it would happen,” Rowland told himself at the time. “I knew there was going to be a lot of people with more experience and bigger names.”

When Oklahoma chose five finalists for phone interviews, Rowland made the cut. When the candidate list was trimmed to three for face-to-face interviews, Rowland was still alive.

“That’s when our hopes started getting higher,” he said.

Rowland had known AD Joe Castiglione for years and said their meeting “went great,” but he was anxious about making a first impression on the other decision-maker, Oklahoma president David Boren.

“I thought it might be a 10-minute conversation, but President Boren knew all about my family, my education and even some professors I had in college,” Rowland said. “We talked about the history of the OU position, and it was so free-flowing and easy that we went on for an hour and a half.”

Time got away from them until Boren checked his watch and said, “Oops, I’ve gotta let you go because Henry Kissinger’s coming over to the house.”

Two days later, Rowland received the job offer. He wept upon phoning his wife, Jennifer, to share the news.

“She put her career to the side so that we could chase this, so it’s always been a ‘we’ thing. Other than the birth of our children and our marriage, it is probably the most exciting thing that has ever happened to us,” Rowland said. “Somehow, some way, I had been selected for my dream job, and I couldn’t believe it.”

Winning the job was the first obstacle. Winning over Sooners fans came next. Though Barry endorsed Rowland publicly and privately, the new hire prepared for a deluge of critics. He decided early on that he would never wade into those toxic message boards in search of opinions.

“It would have been weird for me to hear anybody else other than Bob calling OU games, so I accepted it would be weird for fans, too,” he said. “And to this day, I’m never offended by someone who says they prefer Bob over me, because I’d prefer Bob over me. That’s not insulting to me. I have no problem with that.”

Nine years since becoming the voice of the Sooners, there’s strong evidence Rowland’s appeal is growing. His weekly scene-setter videos fuel the pregame fire, and his call of “Unhitch the wagon!” rings out every time OU secures another win. Even his spotter boards have even become treasured mementos of postgame giveaways.

“I don’t know that I fully understand that spotter boards,” he said. “But I guess it’s kinda cool if maybe someone wants to hang them up in their man cave or whatever.”

Rowland hasn’t allowed his dream job to lighten the workload. He still hosts a radio talk show from 6-9 a.m. on weekdays, operating from an in-home studio. There’s the weekly “Lincoln Riley Show” during football season, preceded by an hour-long show “The Huddle” with former Sooners linebacker Teddy Lehman. There are several shows on SoonerSports TV, including a sports debate format and a soon-to-launch program in which Rowland and guests add fresh commentary to vintage games. Then basketball season brings coaches shows for Lon Kruger and Sherri Coale.

His only regret is not getting more time with Barry, who succumbed to a heart attack midway through the 2011 season when Rowland was new to the job.

“He was a man I dearly loved and grew up listening to, so I wished I had gotten more time with him,” Rowland said. “There was something about his voice and his personality, where as soon as he started talking you wanted to hug the guy and hang out with him. That explains why people listened to him for 50 years.

“I think we get caught up in executing a call properly, which is important, but the staying power in this profession has to do with personality and likability.”

West Virginia’s 1996 season roared to life with Amos Zereoue gashing Pitt for a 69-yard touchdown run. That first carry of Zereoue’s college career also provided the first inkling that Fleming’s was winding down. At 73, the “Voice of the Mountaineers” wasn’t following the action with his iconic diction and clarity.

His colleagues and bosses in the athletic department noticed a rapid decline, and there came word from the family that Fleming may have had a stroke during the offseason.

Fleming lasted only one more week in the booth before his 42-year run with West Virginia ended. His friend for nearly two decades, assistant AD Mike Parsons, delivered the hard news.

“Jack and I were very close, so it was difficult, but we had to make the move to save Jack, to protect his legacy,” Parsons said. “It helped that it was done in concert with his family, and when I made the trip to Pittsburgh to tell him about the change, his daughter went with me. Did Jack like it? No. Was he pissed off? Yes. But we had to do it for him.”

Tony Caridi replaced the beloved Jack Fleming early in the 1996 football season. (Courtesy of WVU Athletics)

The midseason switch thrust Caridi into the play-by-play chair. He was 33 at the time, a Syracuse graduate who had been in Morgantown 12 years — but a Syracuse graduate nonetheless. He hosted a statewide sports talk show, produced WVU video features and worked the control board for Fleming’s basketball broadcasts. He even served as Fleming’s spotter at the Fiesta Bowl when West Virginia met Notre Dame for the 1988 national championship. Caridi showed the chops to develop his own national profile: He provided color commentary for Mountaineers games that were tape-delayed on ESPN and also earned play-by-play assignments for rivalries such as Alabama-Tennessee, Texas A&M-Texas and Florida State-Miami “Wide Right.”

“I knew what I was capable of, but I also knew what I was getting into,” Caridi said. “You’re taking away the sound the fans have heard for several generations. These jobs are emotionally attaching, and when that goes away, it’s hard for people to accept. I get that.

“Jack didn’t just cast a shadow. He was the sun.”

That’s why the sting Caridi felt from that homemade sign — “Bring back Jack!” — has faded over time.

Stepping in for Fleming — the man WVU icon Jerry West described as “an artist with words,” the broadcaster who called “The Immaculate Reception” — stretched beyond professional skills. It required not just reading the room, but reading an entire state that needed an acclimation period akin to mourning. That booth atop Mountaineer Field, it was Fleming’s booth, so much so that national broadcasters typically stopped in to pay their respects. Caridi recalled Saturdays when Keith Jackson would greet Fleming. “It was like going to see the Godfather,” he said.

Few people outside the athletic department realized the lengths to which WVU went for Fleming later in the ’96 season. For a game played at Rutgers, Parsons actually outfitted a second radio booth with recording equipment and contracted another color commentator — all to give Fleming another try. All parties knew it was not being broadcast but was intended solely for taping purposes so that Fleming, the noted perfectionist, could gauge his own performance under live-game conditions.

“Unfortunately,” Parsons said, “it was rough.”

Fleming’s ouster put heat on Parsons, too. After a few death threats were phoned in, a sheriff’s deputy was dispatched to patrol the Parsons’ neighborhood

While Caridi was calling Don Nehlen’s final game at the Music City Bowl in 2000, Parsons received word that Fleming was voted into the WVU Sports Hall of Fame. Though inductees weren’t due to be notified for months, Parsons broke protocol by calling Fleming. That call loomed fortuitous when, six days later, Fleming died at his home from an apparent heart attack.

Caridi was happy that WVU essentially retired the nickname “Voice of the Mountaineers” with Fleming, figuring no one could live up to that tradition. But now, at 56, and with 24 years on the mic himself, Caridi has become synonymous with West Virginia sports for Gen Z and some millennials. That hit home at a football practice last year when a 20-something fan told Caridi, “I’ve listened to you ever since I was a kid!”

West Virginia still tweets some of Fleming’s vintage calls, and Caridi has a runaway favorite: The 1984 win over No. 4 Boston College when the defense sacked Heisman Trophy winner Doug Flutie.

“THEY GOT FLUTIE! All afternoon they’ve been chasing him. All afternoon they’ve pursued him, AND THEY GOT HIM!”

“Jack’s call was just gold,” Caridi said.

Caridi’s personal list of highlights includes the wind-down to the Elite Eight win over Kentucky in 2010. On the football side, there was Phil Brady’s fake punt that capped a Sugar Bowl victory against Georgia in 2006 and, more recently, the Will Grier-to-Gary Jennings touchdown pass that silenced Texas in 2018.

Caridi’s son Andrew has gone from broadcasting Single-A baseball to handling play-by-play for Division II Shepherd University in West Virginia. While offering fatherly instruction on pointing out formations or finding the right volume on dramatic plays, Caridi sometimes will hear himself talking and remember, “Oh yeah, Jack said that.”

(Top photo of John Ward: Courtesy of Tennessee Athletics)

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Dont embarrass us!: The challenges of replacing a legend in the radio booth