Hochuli! Everyone’s favorite NFL ref featured on 60 Minutes Sports

Posted on by

This is a big night for Ed Hochuli fans. I envision viewing parties throughout the country with everyone wearing bulked up Hochuli ref jerseys.

The rundown from Showtime:

Fans who used to boo their calls gave NFL refs standing ovations when they returned to the field after a labor lock-out last year.  It took a few weeks of disastrous calls by the replacement refs for fans to finally realize how much they appreciated their regular professional NFL refs. Now, two of the NFL’s most respected refs talk to correspondent Pam Oliver about their jobs, the new rules, their new-found stardom and the labor lock-out.  The story with NFL refs Mike Carey and Ed Hochuli will be featured on the next edition of 60 MINUTES SPORTS, Wednesday, September 4 at 10:00 P.M. ET/PT only on SHOWTIME.

In late September 2012, after a few months of the lock-out and a few weeks of NFL season games with shaky replacement refs, a blown call in the end zone handing the Seattle Seahawks a victory over the Green Bay Packers caused deafening criticism. A temporary truce was called and that Thursday night, the real refs were back on the field.   Did Carey think the Green Bay debacle called the NFL’s hand?  “You can’t predict when somebody is going to see the light,” says Carey.  “And sometimes pride gets in the way. From the beginning I…knew we were coming back. Was it going to be that next week? I didn’t think so. I thought they would maybe go another week [without the real refs] or so, just to show their power,” he tells Oliver.

Carey and Hochuli are among the most recognizable refs in the NFL and have been best friends off the field ever since they joined the league 24 years ago. They let Oliver into their worlds and their heads for this rare look at the officials who enforce the rules in America’s favorite sport.

On those “complicated” rules, says Carey, “We’ve spent hours and hours, weeks upon weeks, trying to perfect [the rule book] and nobody has it down perfectly. No one referee ever.” Hochuli says he studies the rules about 15 hours a week.  “I don’t necessarily agree with all of the rules, but I don’t write them. My job is to enforce them.”

Their job is often to listen, too, says Hochuli, to the nasty things coaches and others say to them when they make their decisions on the field.   “It’s in a tremendously emotional game…atmosphere. I go to talk to a coach on the sideline and he doesn’t have a question. He just wants to vent and I recognize that,” Hochuli tells Oliver.

Yet another NFL show: Dungy, Harrison featured on NBC SN’s ‘Coach’s Clicker’

Posted on by

There really is no end in sight.

Here are the details from the latest serving to the NFL smorgasbord.

******

NBCSN will launch a new, weekly half-hour NFL studio show– FNIA Coach’s Clicker – on Wednesday, Sept. 11, that dovetails off of Football Night in America, the most-watched pre-game show in sports. FNIA Coach’s Clicker will debut each week at 6:30 p.m. ET on NBCSN, with Tony Dungy and Rodney Harrison providing an in-depth Xs-and-Os preview of the upcoming week’s biggest games, including the Sunday Night Football contest. Liam McHughwill host the new program from the famous Studio 8H at NBCUniversal’s 30 Rockefeller Plaza headquarters in New York City.

Derived from the weekly coach’s clicker segment on Football Night in America, FNIA Coach’s Clicker will look ahead to the upcoming week by providing in-depth breakdowns of teams, one-on-one matchups and schemes that will factor into the outcome of biggest games. Dungy and Harrison will take viewers inside the film room to take apart offenses, defenses and special teams by utilizing highlights, graphics and Coach Dungy’s clicker. NFL insiders Mike Florio and Scott Pioli will appear weekly to provide viewers with relevant news and notes about the upcoming week’s slate of games.

The premiere episode of FNIA Coach’s Clicker will focus on the Week 2 Sunday Night Football contest between the San Francisco 49ers and Seattle Seahawks, as well as other games. While the program debuts each Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. ET, its first encore will occur later that same night at midnight ET. That airing will follow the weekly debut of Emmy Award-nominated NFL Turning Point, NBCSN’s weekly show co-produced by NFL Films which reviews the most-critical moments of the previous week’s biggest games.

“Every week, FNIA Coach’s Clicker will provide the deepest dive on the biggest games of the week,” said Sam Flood, executive producer, NBC Sports & NBCSN. “Tony, Rodney and Liam will take NFL fans inside the film room to break down the most critical Xs-and-Os elements of the upcoming week. While NFL Turning Point looks back at the most critical moments of the previous week’s biggest games, FNIA Coach’s Clicker will look ahead.”

The coach’s clicker segment on Football Night in America and now FNIA Coach’s Clicker utilize an actual clicker that is identical to the one Dungy used to communicate Xs-and-Os strategy with his teams during his 13-year head coaching career.

 

Keith Olbermann wants ending like the good Scrooge

Posted on by

Only Olbermann could come up with this thought. Also, allows me to use a picture of Scrooge in September.

From Reeves Wiedeman’s piece in the New Yorker:

“I’d like to change the ending,” he went on. “Not change it by papering it over, or by rewriting a Wikipedia page, but, literally, by having people react to me like I’m Scrooge on Christmas morning, rather than Scrooge kicking Tiny Tim down the stairs for no reason.”

After a week plus a day, Olbermann definitely is off to a good start. While I strongly disagreed with his opening night rant on sports reporting, he has done some outstanding stuff.

It all has been a great reminder of Olbermann’s unique talent and what we had been missing.

Also, I’m sure Olbermann is looking forward to ESPN completing its coverage of the U.S. Open so the show can resume its normal 11 p.m. slot.

 

 

Minister Lundquist? After 50 years, announcing still is Verne Lundquist’s ‘calling’

Posted on by

Here’s the link to my USA Today piece on Verne Lundquist. The great CBS announcer recently celebrated his 50th year in the business.

However, after he graduated college, he almost went into another business.

From the story:

********

If Verne Lundquist had felt the calling, he might be beginning his 50th year as a minister.

After graduating from Texas Lutheran College in 1962 with a degree in sociology, he had planned to follow in the footsteps of his father. However, after six weeks at the Lutheran School of Theology in Rock Island, Ill., Lundquist realized he didn’t have the dedication or the calling.

“I have six (credit hours) in Greek, which hasn’t come in particularly handy,” Lundquist said.

While preparing for what figures to be a huge season opener for CBS — Alabama at Texas A&M on Sept. 14 — Lundquist, 73, reflected on his milestone anniversary.

“I know it is a cliché, but I can’t believe I’ve done 50 years,” Lundquist said. “I was thinking, ‘How could this have happened?'”

Lundquist inherited his father’s voice skills. He soon put them to use, landing a job at a radio station in his hometown of Austin. Aug. 31, 1963, Lundquist launched a career that has made him among the most popular and enduring broadcasters in the business.

He eventually became a sports anchor in Dallas. In the days before ESPN, he recalled, he was a one-man operation, shooting and editing his own film.

It was his Lundquist’s radio work on Dallas Cowboys games that attracted the attention of the networks. He started at ABC in 1974 and joined CBS in 1982. He is the network’s lead voice on college football and is a fixture on its NCAA basketball tournament coverage.

Lundquist has been part of the familiar soundtrack for both sports. His play-by-play features an easy and engaging style that adds a distinctive texture to the telecasts.

“My role model was Jim McKay,” Lundquist said. “He was the greatest storyteller we’ve ever had. I try to do the same thing.”

*******

There’s more in USA Today. Coming next week, I will have the complete interview with Lundquist.

What a surprise: CBS settles with Time Warner Cable just in time for NFL season opener

Posted on by

Who would have guessed the timing of this settlement? Oh, only everybody.

King NFL is about to begin, and neither side wanted to risk alienating the peasants, er subscribers, who bow to its throne.

Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News writes this also is a big deal in LA because of the CBS connection with the local coverage of the Dodgers.

The agreement was not reached in time for L.A. viewers to see some of the KCBS-Channel 2 morning coverage of the rain-delayed U.S. Open tennis championships in New York. But it was done for many Dodgers fans to see the team’s game at Colorado pop up on their TWC system at 3 p.m. just as Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw drove in two runs with a single to tie the game at 5-5 in the fifth inning.

Monday’s game, as well as the rest of the Dodgers’ three-game series in Colorado this week, are all on KCAL-Channel 9, also owned by CBS.

No financial settlement was disclosed. Some 1.3 million of the 5.6 million households in L.A. are TWC subscribers. The month-long blackout that started Aug. 2 had affected about 3.2 million customers also in New York and Dallas.

“The NFL is the biggest ratings event in all of television,” said Neal Pilson, founder of Pilson Communications and the former president of CBS Sports, told Fox Business. “NFL football is a pretty important property in those cities. The sports audience is passionate, not passive.”

 

Posted in NFL

Former Northwestern QB launches innovative new college football site; features former athletes writing about their schools

Posted on by

C.J. Bacher threw for 7,319 yards and 43 touchdowns as a Northwestern quarterback from 2005-08. Good numbers, to be sure, but after getting cut by the Bears, Bacher put his Masters degree in communication into use.

Football, though, remains in his blood. Ultimately, it led him to his new enterprise, HuddlePass.com. The video provides an explanation.


Danny Ecker of Crain’s Chicago Business writes:

That’s the basis of HuddlePass.com, the 27-year-old’s college sports commentary website, which launches today and brings together the written insights and opinions of 92 former players (to start) into a single hub.

It’s free for users, and it’s different from popular “message board” sites like Scout.com and Rivals.com, which offer “insider” information about teams from week to week. “Huddle experts,” as they are called, will write articles that provide context to what coaches might be thinking, why teams ran certain plays and what players go through on a day-to-day basis.

Here’s more from Bacher in a Q/A.

Short version: How do you describe this concept to people who ask you about it?

HuddlePass is a platform for former college athletes to share their unique perspective with Fans and ultimately bring the Fans closer to their favorite programs. This perspective is focused on two things: providing a behind-the-scenes look at the day-to-day routine of the team and teaching the strategy of the game.

What made you go in this direction?

Over the past three years, I had been writing segment for Wildcat Report focusing on the same type of information (providing an insider’s perspective & teaching the game) and the segment generated a lot of interest from Wildcat Fans. I wasn’t doing anything special and I’m not an exceptional writer; I just focused on what I knew about the program and about the game and the reception of this information was better than expected. Fans want to be closer to the Huddles of their favorite teams.

Talk about some of the people who are contributing?

We’ve got a great group of contributors for HuddlePass in 2013. Kyle Kleckner (Illinois DB), Brandon Villarreal (Purdue OL), and Chris Malleo (Northwestern QB/TE/LB) have assembled a team with a strong emphasis on “diversity of perspective”, which our Chief Brand Officer TJ Jones (Northwestern WR) has stressed. Football is a completely different game for different positions and there is a lot to learn. I have found myself learning the game in more depth from some of our guys that played other positions, particularly DL and LBs. Some of the more notable Experts that will be contributing to HuddlePass include Eric Crouch, Craig Krenzel, Juice Williams, Zack Mills, Jeff Smoker, Stuart Schweigert, Bobby Carpenter, Brandon Williams, Tyrone Carter, Keith Conlin, Josh Gaines, Justin Kershaw, and many more. We were very selective in our choosing of Ambassadors from each school, who in turn put together their team of Experts. They have done a great job and our new Ambassadors that we are recruiting in our National Expansion efforts are doing a great job too.

Will they be getting paid. If not, why are they doing it?

First off, I want to mention that the site is completely free to Fans. 50% of all revenue that we generate will be split with our contributors based on the metrics their Huddles generate. Additionally, every Ambassador and Expert that is with us through 2013 will own an equity stake in HuddlePass. It’s really less about the money and more about improving the Fan experience and the Student-Athlete experience at our respective programs, but as Stuart Schweigert put it at our HuddlePass Conference that we held in Chicago in July, “Profit is not a bad word.”

How will your site be different than the myriad of other college football sites out there?

This is a great question. Most sites that are currently out there do a great job of telling Fans the “What.” Our focus is on the “Why”. Why did the Head Coach decide to punt on 4th and Inches? Why did the curl-flat combination work against Cover 3? Why did the team get off to a slow start? This is information that is covered well at the National Level by ESPN and covered at the Conference Level by the Conference Networks like BTN, but not really covered well at the Program-Level.

How would you define success for this site?

Success is defined by the enhancement of the Student-Athlete experience, which is a byproduct of the Fan experience. College Football is such a thrilling experience and it’s really the Fans that make it so great. The more engaged that we can get the Fans and the more knowledge that they have, the more thrilling the Student-Athlete experience will be.

Anything else?

Many people ask us when we will be expanding to other schools and if we are going to expand to other sports. We are currently expanding rapidly to other schools across the country utilizing the network that we have built. As soon as we have the correct infrastructure behind a Program’s Huddle (Ambassadors and Experts, Managing Content Editors, a solid Marketing/PR plan, Program Support, and much more), we will release that school on HuddlePass. We are probably a week or so away from releasing Maryland and Rutgers and we are getting close with other schools like Alabama, Oregon, Oregon State, Boston College, Georgia, and many others. As for other sports, we have begun the process of building out Basketball Huddles, which is going great, and we have plans on expanding to other sports from there.

 

 

It isn’t just players: Pam Oliver talks about concussion after getting hit by football

Posted on by

Bob Raissman of the New York Daily News has the scary story of Pam Oliver’s recent concussion. She was hit by a football prior to an Aug. 18 Giants-Colts game.

Oliver had just finished doing an interview with referee Ed Hochuli for a piece she was doing on NFL refs for Showtime’s “60 Minutes Sports,” which airs Wednesday night, and returned to the sidelines. “That’s all I remember,” she said. “I asked the people around me, ‘What happened?’ They told me I just got hit in the head with a football.”

After waking up that Monday her head hurt so much she had to hold it. “The sensitivity to light started and some nausea too,” she said, “my whole body was sore.” Oliver went to the doctor. The CT Scan came up clean, but she was diagnosed with a concussion. Oliver spent the next five days in a dark room inside her home.

“I slept for hours on end. The minute you wake up you’re reminded. Your head is pounding,” she said. “I really could not take light — the light from the TV, the accent lighting. The sun was completely my enemy. My blinds were drawn. It was miserable.”

Oliver said she definitely will be more careful when she returns to the sidelines Sunday for the Packers-49ers game.

“I’m now officially road kill,” she said. “But when I’m back on the sidelines, I’ll do what I always do: Stay a bit behind the line of scrimmage. And keep my head on a swivel.”

One and done: Craig James in, then out at Fox Sports Southwest

Posted on by

Richard Deitsch of SI.com reports Craig James’ return to the analyst’s chair didn’t last long.

The Craig James era at Fox Sports Southwest will be a short one.

SI.com has learned that the veteran broadcaster will no longer appear on the network. Fox Sports executives were not happy with the hire by the regional network, according to sources, and the hire had not been fully vetted at the highest levels of Fox Sports management. A formal agreement had not been finalized, even though James appeared on FSS on Saturday night. “Craig James will not be making any further appearances on Fox Sports Southwest’s football coverage this season,” said a Fox Sports spokesperson, when asked for a comment.

Good reads: Wright Thompson on Dan Gable; Rolling Stone’s detailed story on Aaron Hernandez

Posted on by

For all the 140-character blasts and edgy blog posts, there is a ton of good, thoughtful and expansive sports journalism occurring on the World Wide Web. Here are a couple of stories that are highly recommended:

********

Wright Thompson’s piece in ESPN Magazine on Dan Gable’s efforts to get wrestling back into the Olympics.

This description of Gable struggling to watch a Iowa wrestler in an NCAA championship match goes above and beyond:

St. John pushes his opponent into the mat. “Ride him like a dog!” Gable yells. The first two periods pass. Sometimes Gable just mouths words, intense, forgetting to speak. St. John is tied with 48 seconds left.
 The Penn State fans in the next suite are peeking over at the red-faced, bald man losing his shit. At rest, Gable looks like a retired math teacher, but under the influence of anger and adrenaline, he transforms. His eyes seem to shift from a soft hazel to a dull black, the color of an alien, subterranean element. Given the right stimuli, like a vital Iowa match, he seems a good sweat from his final wrestling weight of 149. The eruption arrives. Watching Gable melt down is like watching Picasso paint. He shakes and strains, a rocket on the pad. The flying spit and sudden fits of decorum, like “Jiminy Christmas!” — Tourette’s in reverse — are followed by growling, intense curses.

*******

Paul Solotaroff and Ron Borges examine the life of Aaron Hernandez in Rolling Stone. It created some controversy with some allegations about the Patriots.

Most people, even self-important stars blowing thousands on bottle-shape women, might have simmered down about now. But the 23-year-old Aaron Hernandez wasn’t like most people; for ages, he hadn’t even been like himself. The sweet, goofy kid from Bristol, Connecticut, with the klieg-light smile and ex-thug dad who’d turned his life around to raise two phenom sons – that Aaron Hernandez had barely been heard from in the seven hard years since his father was snatched away, killed in his prime by a medical error that left his boys soul-sick and lost. Once in a great while, the good Aaron would surface, phoning one of his college coaches to tell him he loved him and to talk to the man’s kids for hours, or stopping Robert Kraft, the Patriots’ owner, to kiss him on the cheek and thank him damply. There was such hunger in that kid for a father’s hand, and such greatness itching to get out, that coach after coach had covered for him whenever the bad Aaron showed – the violent, furious kid who was dangerous to all, most particularly, it seems, to his friends.