The Poscast with Kevin Harlan.
Have a few thoughts about the Lakers disgraceful finish -- will post those later today -- but first I want to say something about my Poscast guest this week, TNT's Kevin Harlan. We talk a whole lot of NBA, the fall of the Lakers, the excitement of this Hawks-Bulls Series, the magic of Boston-Miami ... Kevin will be broadcasting tonight's Celtics-Heat game.
I love enthusiasm for life and I despise fake enthusiasm, and I'm dumb enough to believe I can tell the difference. I can't tell the difference, of course. As Sollozzo says in The Godfather: I'm not that clever. There are good actors and bad ones, people who feel enthusiasm but don't publicly express it and the other way around.
But that doesn't really matter. What I love about being around enthusiasm is not how real it is but what that enthusiasm does for me. How can you not love being around someone who loves what they are doing? How can you not feel good being around someone who is happy, unabashedly happy? I feel sure that this, as much as anything, gets at what I love about Bruce Springsteen. Sure, the music's great. Sure, the performances are great. Sure the lyrics are interesting, and the band is awesome, and the sound is energy. But as much as than anything, what I hear when I listen to Springsteen is the sound of a man who is doing EXACTLY what he wants to be doing, what he has dreamed about doing. To be around that makes me love life just a bit more.
Kevin Harlan loves what he is doing. I know this on a personal level because I have known Kevin for a good while now. But, I know it anyway, just from listening to him broadcast games. He loves the stories. He is thrilled by the action. He is in awe of the players. And all of that ... well, you can hear these things in every game he calls.
Sports announcers bring out powerful emotions in people. We like 'em. We can't stand 'em. We are thrilled by 'em. We are annoyed by 'em. There are announcers out there who make me want to throw things at the television. And there are others who make the games twice as enjoyable as they would be with another voice. Some of these things are logical -- most aren't. Most of these things are deep-seated, involuntary, I couldn't explain it, and I couldn't convince you I'm right. I tell a friend that I love the Al Michaels-Cris Collinsworth team, I think it's by far the best in football, and he says: "I can't stand Collinsworth's voice" ... well, the conversation doesn't really have any place to go. There are objective points to be made about announcers and how informed they are, how hard they work, how open they are to the game and how married they are to their own biases.
But I think much of our connection to announcers is gray area. Kevin Harlan, objectively, is an excellent announcer, I think. But more, much more for me, he sounds like he is the happiest guy in the room. He sounds like, if they turned off all his equipment and told him that nobody was listening, he would keep on announcing the game because he cannot imagine anything else would be more fun. I love that in people. When I listen to Kevin Harlan call games, I feel happier.
Circle Me, Gus Johnson.
ReplyDeleteKevin Harlan made T-Wolves games tolerable for years just through his sheer enthusiasm and unwillingness to phone it in. Great announcer.
ReplyDeleteAgreed Josh. I'll never forget his call on J.R. Ryder's no-look half-court shot.
ReplyDeleteI can't stand his voice...or any of the things he does with it. But I also loathe Al Michaels with the intensity of a burning sun.
ReplyDeleteI used to like Kevin Harlan but now I feel like he goes out of his way to compliment Kansas every single basketball game he does. He also has no objectivity about Coach K--unabashedly loves him and all things Duke. It bothers me, I can't help it. Coach K CAN in fact be wrong on the occasional issue.
ReplyDeleteYou're totally right. You should have seen the call on Yuniesky Betancourt's ridiculous double play flip last night. "Oh my...GOOODDDDDD!!!"
ReplyDeleteI don't like Harlan -- his enthusiasm comes off as shtick to me.
ReplyDeleteKevin Harlan is my favorite in football and basketball. I am always glad on fall Sundays when he is the voice of the football game I am watching. (Though I have not always been fond of his partners)
ReplyDeleteI was introduced to Kevin as the Radio voice of the (Then) Kansas City Kings, and the Chiefs until 1993. (Many of those 80's games were blacked out, so I listened to him on the radio alot) While he is still my favorite on TV, the radio is where he truly shines. I really feel like I can see the game and feel the excitement of it when he does a game on the radio.
I agree with you that he seems to love what he does. He is deservedly well compensated, but I always get the feeling that if announcing was a $35,000 a year job, it would still be his career choice. Whether that is true or not, he is #1 in my book.
Harlan is good. He was great as the Chiefs announcer. He also is smart. He gives a good interview on sports radio.
ReplyDeleteHis enthusiasm is the opposite of our local baseball radio guy Denny Matthews. He drains the excitement right out of a baseball game. About the only thing that he gets charged up about is when a baseball game is going too slow, then he complains endlessly. It is the opposite of Harlan; Matthews conveys that he cannot wait for the game to be over. For the last few years, he even takes time off during the year.
Yet, he has been in KC for over 30 years and a lot of people like him. He does have a great voice. He also is interesting when he gives a radio interview. He is just awful during the games. After more than 30 years, there is no a single memorable phrase or a single memorable call. You never hear him on sports highlight shows. The local ads can barely find a call by him that shows any excitement.
To finish my rant, Matthews actually believes ON RADIO that when an exciting play happens he should stay silent for 20 to 30 seconds and just have the crowd noise on radio. He always does it. It is okay on TV when you have something to watch, but it is beyond idiocy on radio. All you get is annoying crowd noise while if you were not listening closely (Matthews does not raise his voice to bring attention to stuff, so you might have missed the original call), you are wondering what happened. He even does in in vistors parks, where we are treated, for example, to listening to Yankee fans cheer.