Announcers Quotes:

Nobody in football should be called a genius. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein.

- Joe Theismann

source: "Conrad Smith sees USA challenge in all black and white: it's about the win" by Alexander Bisley, www.theguardian.com. October 30, 2014.

topic: Funny, Sports, Football, Great Sports, Sports Football

To be the announcer where you live is a very special opportunity.

- Dick Enberg

topic: Opportunity, Special, Where You Live, Announcers

If you're the play-by-play announcer, I think it's your job to be better than just saying what's on people's TV screen.

- Joe Buck

source: Source: www.npr.org

topic: Jobs, Thinking, Play, Announcers

In radio, they say, nothing happens until the announcer says it happens.

- Ernie Harwell

topic: Radio, Things Happen, Announcers

An announcer is only as good as yesterday's performance.

- Curt Gowdy

topic: Yesterday, Performances, Announcers

If the announcer can produce the impression that he is a gentleman, he may pronounce as he pleases.

- George Bernard Shaw

topic: Gentleman, May, Produce, Announcers

Get out the rye bread and mustard grandma, cause it's GRAND SALAMI TIME!

- Dave Niehaus

topic: Baseball, Grandma, Bread, Commentators, Famous Baseball

I heard doctors revived a man who had been dead for 4-1/2 minutes. When they asked him what it was like being dead, he said it was like listening to Yankees announcer Phil Rizzuto during a rain delay.

- David Letterman

topic: Rain, Men, Yankees, Announcers

He has the vocal modulation of a railway-station announcer, the expressive power of a fence-post and the charisma of a week-old head of lettuce.

- Fintan O'Toole

topic: Fence Post, Insult, Week, Lettuce, Railway Station

There is no tradition more worth of envy, no institution worthy of such loyalty, as the University of Georgia.

- Larry Munson

topic: Loyalty, Envy, Georgia, Announcers

I think once you start as an announcer, you have to decide what kind of approach you're going to have. I decided very early that I was going to be a reporter, that I would not cheer for the team. I don't denigrate people who do it. It's fine. I think you just have to fit whatever kind of personality you have, and I think my nature was to be more down the middle and that's the way I conducted the broadcasts.

- Ernie Harwell

topic: Cheer, Team, Thinking, Announcers

Most announcers play pattycake, pattycake with the players they're covering.

- Johnny Miller

topic: Player, Play, Covering, Announcers

I don't want to brag, but I do more homework on the course than any other announcer. I chart the greens to get all the breaks. I walk down into the greenside bunkers. I walk into the fairway bunkers to see whether a player can reach the green from them.

- Johnny Miller

topic: Player, Green, Want, Announcers

I think if you checked the attendance records of all the announcers, you'd find a lot better record than you would of anybody else in any other business because we love the game and have a passion for it.

- Ernie Harwell

topic: Passion, Thinking, Games, Announcers

The best basketball announcer is one who allows you to close your eyes.

- Larry Bird

topic: Basketball, Eye, Announcers, Larry

Baseball is the best announcer game, the game that I first enjoyed playing, and the game I had a passion for.

- Dick Enberg

topic: Baseball, Passion, Games, Announcers

Announcers don't do enough of the cat-and-mouse strategy and all the work that goes into it. You watch a broadcast and guys get the pitches wrong.

- Al Leiter

topic: Cat, Guy, Watches, Cat And Mouse, Announcers

I wanted to be Stan Laurel, then I wanted to be Fred Astaire and then Captain Kangaroo. I actually started out as a radio announcer when I was 17 and never left the business, so that's literally 70 years.

- Dick Van Dyke

topic: Years, Kangaroos, Radio, Announcers

We saw very little of the real Jack Buck behind the microphone. He would touch people in ways that we will never know. Jack was much more than just an announcer.

- Ozzie Smith

topic: Sports, Real, People, Announcers

It makes me think about how you hear these young people say, "I see you, man." Or even if you go and watch some basketball game over the summer and the announcer goes, "I see you," and you see that player smile. You know what I mean? That thing of just being recognized, especially when you do a little subtle thing. I don't know.

- Paul Beatty

source: Source: www.guernicamag.com

topic: Basketball, Summer, Mean, Game Over, Basketball Game

Most of the time when something goes bad—a marriage, a war, a run of good luck—you don’t know it. It’s like in the cartoons, only less funny. You run off the cliff and just keep going—talking, listening to music, making plans, for years sometimes—except no announcer interrupts to say ‘Excuse me, collect call for Mr. Coyote’ to make you notice and make us laugh. You just wake up and fall.

- Mark Slouka

topic: Running, War, Fall, Announcers, Music Making

When I was a kid, I had ambitions for being a television announcer, which was before television took off, you know, in the late 40s. And just through necessity, going out looking for work, I was starting to sing, and dance, and act, and I never expected to do that, nor to have any success at it at least.

- Dick Van Dyke

topic: Ambition, Kids, Going Out, Looking For Work, Announcers

I teased Randy Orton because he started using my finish, the Angle Slam. I said, Hey, I dont mind you using it, but at least give it a name. When he hits it, the announcers just say, Well, he just hit that... thing.

- Kurt Angle

source: "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

topic: Names, Giving, Mind, Randy, Randy Orton

I would say the referees have the toughest game to call. I would say that there's a lot of officiating done by announcers, local announcers. Sometimes you should listen to a game from both feeds, and you'd think you were listening to completely different games.

- David Stern

topic: Thinking, Games, Listening, Referee, Announcers

I spent 15 years in I-AA football, which is awesome, because you wear every hat in the building at one time. I was everything from a PA announcer to a popcorn salesman to a teacher at a university, as part of the PE department. When you don't have resources, what you do is study as much as you can and try to put it in your own terms. There's no one thing I've invented.

- Jim McElwain

topic: Football, Teacher, Years, Announcers

When they [court announcers] say, 'This is the world No. 2,' it just doesn't sound right to me because either I'm No. 1 or I'm a grand slam champion. I'm not world No. 2. I just don't like the ring of it when I'm introduced on court because I've been up there for so, so long.

- Roger Federer

topic: Long, Champion, Sound, Announcers

I was the class clown, you know, that kind of thing, and I gathered around me a group of guys who also were silly. I was in all the plays and everything. But I don't know, at that time show businesses looked like the moon, you know, it was so far away. I wanted to be a radio announcer.

- Dick Van Dyke

source: "Dick Van Dyke Discusses His Career in Entertainment". "Larry King Live", www.cnn.com. September 22, 2000.

topic: Silly, Moon, Class, Announcers

You have a white guy as an announcer and sportscaster. Me, I'm black. I do it and I've already done some stuff in the past. We're more expressive than the white guys. You look at the skill players. We're the ones that get into the end zone. We get in the end zone more than they do.

- Terrell Owens

source: "Top 10: Big Mouths In Sports" by Phil Helm, www.askmen.com.

topic: Past, Player, Skills, Announcers

I just always wanted to be a baseball announcer. I'm a huge Mets fan, and I wanted to be the next Bob Murphy. As far as careers go, that was the first career that I really thought about. Well, before that, I wanted to be a Mello Yello truck driver.

- Logan Marshall-Green

source: "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

topic: Baseball, Careers, Fans, Mets Fans, Murphy

Even if, as is generally the case, everything that the ad says about the product is scrupulously honest, or at any rate scrupulously avoids outright dishonesty, the implication of the direct address of most commercials - that the announcer speaks with the viewer's welfare at heart - is fraudulent.

- Michael Schudson

source: Michael Schudson (2013). “Advertising, The Uneasy Persuasion (RLE Advertising): Its Dubious Impact on American Society”, p.33, Routledge

topic: Heart, Addresses, Honest, Announcers

I do think we can be a little less PC when it comes to sports, though. Just once I want to hear an announcer go 'God, black people are fast. Holy cow! All of them. They're fast. Back to you Bob.'

- Daniel Tosh

topic: Sports, Thinking, People, Announcers

In those days, boxing was very glamorous and romantic. You listened to fights on the radio, and a good announcer made it seem like a contest between gladiators.

- Joseph Barbera

topic: Fighting, Romantic Love, Boxing, Announcers

I have to leave the games now if the announcer says something I don't agree with. I'm thinking, 'Peyton, it is not healthy to be all worked up before a game.

- Peyton Manning

topic: Thinking, Games, Healthy, Peyton, Announcers

I didn't want any degrees if all the ill-read literates and radio announcers and pedagogical dummies I knew had them by the peck.

- J. D. Salinger

source: j.d. salinger (1961). “franny and zooey”

topic: Degrees, Want, Radio, Announcers

George is a radio announcer, and when he walks under a bridge... you can't hear him talk.

- Steven Wright

topic: Bridges, Radio, Comedy, Announcers

Baseball is a tongue-tied kid from Georgia growing up to be an announcer and praising the Lord for showing him the way to Cooperstown. This is a game for America. Still a game for America, this baseball!

- Ernie Harwell

source: Tom Keegan, Ernie Harwell (2002). “Ernie Harwell: My 60 Years in Baseball”, Triumph Books (IL)

topic: Baseball, Growing Up, Kids, Tongue Tied, Praise The Lord

Everybody in the minor leagues - if you're a player, an announcer, whatever - wants to be in the big leagues.

- Ernie Harwell

topic: Player, League, Want, Announcers

People who think they know what they are talking about when they talk about baseball include the announcers and all of the sports press - no matter how much evidence you present them to the contrary they will continue to think that what they think is right.

- Michael Lewis

topic: Sports, Baseball, Thinking, Announcers

I have observed that, generally speaking, network sports announcers did not tend to live to a ripe old age. On the other hand, I had noticed that baseball announcers seemed to go right on forever. Bob Elson has been calling balls and strikes since the beginning of time. Harry Caray must have started with Abner Doubleday, and was still going strong.

- Lindsey Nelson

source: Lindsey Nelson (1985). “Hello everybody, I'm Lindsey Nelson”, William Morrow & Company

topic: Sports, Baseball, Strong, Going Strong, Announcers

I don't think that McMahon thinks very much about the fact that J.R and I have been successful. I don't think that McMahon thinks the wrestling announcers really have that much to contribute the show.

- Jerry Lawler

topic: Wrestling, Successful, Thinking, Announcers

One of the pleasant duties of America's most famous announcers during the relatively short swing era of the big bands was to host late-night remotes from some of the most famous ballrooms throughout the country.

- Nick Clooney

topic: Country, Night, America, Late Night, Ballroom

I wanted to be a radio announcer.

- Dick Van Dyke

topic: Radio, Wanted, Announcers

I believe that the BBC, in spite of the stupidity of its foreign propaganda and the unbearable voices of its announcers, is very truthful. It is generally regarded here as more reliable than the press.

- George Orwell

source: 1941 In the Partisan Review,15 Apr. Reprinted in Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters, vol.2.

topic: Believe, Voice, Stupidity, Announcers

But nowadays everybody's a comedian, even the weather girls and continuity announcers. We laugh at everything. Not intelligently anymore, not with sudden shock, astonishment, or revelation, just relentlessly and meaninglessly. No more rain showers in the desert, just mud and drizzle everywhere, occasionally illuminated by the flash of paparazzi.

- Douglas Adams

source: Douglas Adams (2009). “Mostly Harmless”, p.175, Pan Macmillan

topic: Girl, Rain, Weather, Drizzle, Announcers

Franny has the measles, for one thing. Incidentally, did you hear her last week? She went on at beautiful length about how she used to fly all around the apartment when she was four and no one was home. The new announcer is worse than Grant - if possible, even worse than Sullivan in the old days. He said she surely dreamt that she was able to fly. The baby stood her ground like an angel. She said she knew she was able to fly because when she came down she always had dust on her fingers from touching the light bulbs.

- J. D. Salinger

source: "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters (1955)". "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction". Book by J. D. Salinger, 1963.

topic: Beautiful, Baby, Home, Bulbs, Announcers

Al Michaels is a good announcer. I think Keith Jackson is a terrific announcer. I always loved him on Monday Night Football. I never understood why they got rid of him

- John Turturro

topic: Football, Monday, Thinking, Monday Night, Monday Night Football

I didn't get into acting to be a public service announcer or an advocate and yet, by virtue of this show and how we handle the subject matter that we've been given, that's kind of how it's evolved in certain ways.

- Christopher Meloni

topic: Acting, Matter, Way, Announcers

The fact is that everybody around a college basketball game - the coaches, the announcers, even the referees at a lower level - calculates when the game is really over. They calculate it with intuition and guesswork.

- Bill James

topic: Basketball, College, Games, College Basketball, Basketball Game

In my fifth-grade yearbook - it's right up there on the top shell - the last page says, "What about your future?" and under my name, it says, "When I grow up, I would like to be either an actor, a radio announcer, an impersonator or a comedian."

- George Carlin

source: Source: reprints.longform.org

topic: Growing Up, Yearbook, Names, Fifth Grade, Announcers