Announcers Anyone?

FIRST General Forum
1

I recently saw the thread asking as to how one would become a referee, but I haven’t seen one for becoming an announcer. Since I’ve been a freshman on my team I would announce at our off seasons competitions, and the state Lego League tournament that we hold, and afterward, a bunch of people would come up to me and say “You should think about doing something with that announcing.” Then it occured to me that I could volunteer to be an announcer at a Regional.

Just wondering from those who have done it in the past, how did you get to be the announcer? Was there something special you had to do or just be in the right place at the right time? Any help would be immensely appreciated.

2

I got a chance to talk with the announcer at the Buckeye Regional. He said that he had never heard of FIRST until he was asked to announce for it. So, maybe you have to be trained? Don’t know. :slight_smile:

3

The best thing you can do…keep announcing, eventually someone will catch on. I’ve been announcing pre and post season competitions for what will be 6 years now. This year was the first year that I was able to announce at a regional when I was a co-announcer for NYC FIRST. I was able to get the job quite frankly due to connections…thanx to Rich Wong and Jessica Boucher. So essentially, if you want an announcing job, the best I can say is keep practicing…announce everything you can (I used to approach teams starting up new competitions all the time to offer my services). Get your name out there, show how good you are, then hopefully either someone will notice, or you will know someone who will help ya out!

Good Luck!
-Andy Grady

4

I was discussing this issue with Steve W. in Philly (about one becoming an Announcer or MC at a Regional)… and I’d say the best route is to practice at off-seasons, then try to get signed-up as a trainee at a Regional. However typically, FIRST would like to keep the Announcing/MCing positions to the older crowd (same goes for judges, the people who look good on paper). So you’d have to be really good to climb up in the ranks.

In addition, something that could work just as well (after you’ve gotten practice), approach the committee of a newer Regional in your area who you know could use the help.

These are just some thoughts, I know I’d like to MC one day… there needs to be more energetic females out there on the field :smiley:

ByE

erin

p.s. Just remember, sometimes the more you push… the more they push back. Let FIRST people know you’re out there, keep practicing… and one day they’ll approach you for help. Get to know the people running the events, because they typically won’t request the help of people they don’t know (or weren’t refferred to by a friend).

5

Announcing is one tough job. It is the first job that I had with FIRST. I got my job by being in the right place at the right time. You also have to be a good talker, observant and not repeat yourself. When I finish an event I know that I am fully spent. A lot of people I know love it at the end of an event cause I can’t talk for a couple of days.

What Erin said was partly true about the age issue. This is true for the MC job as the MC’s are visual reps for what FIRST represents. I believe that with announcers who are the “Voice” and not seen (Well some are not), it is more on the presentation and sound. Believe me when I say that not everyone likes every style. There are peole that have told me I am good and others tell me that I am not. It is more my style that people like or dislike.

You do need to practice. It would be good to ask FIRST if you could get access to their training for announcers. Offseason events are a good place to practice and be noticed. There is also a lot less pressure at these events so you can do and say things with less people taking offence. You can also volunteer at a regional as a back up announcer. This will give you short bursts at the action without the presure of having to go for 2 days. You could also “announce” during practice on Thursday. If you can do this then the rest ain’t so hard. Thursday is the hardest day as a lot of robots don’t do much. By annoncing Thursday and spot filling then people will get an idea of the kind of job that you can do. Next is the matter of getting your foot in the door. Most regionals have the MC and announcer jobs filled from previous years. Your best bet is new regionals. The caution here is that the MC announcer jobs are very important to the competition. If you have a bad MC or announcer then the event can become very boring and disorganized. These positions are important to FIRST and they want people that can do the job filling them. That is why you need to become known 1st then go to step 2. My first year I did only the Canadian Regional. The second year I did Canadian Regional, Pitttsburgh and Championship. This year I was involved with CR, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Philly and Championship. Two of these jobs came later on after I found out that Detroit did not have anyone and I got a call on a Tuesday and was in Philly on Wednesday. Those 2 jobs were right place, right time and I was known to people.

The announcer job is a great job to have. You see all of the action close up and you get to talk. How much better can it get? There are also other tasks involved with announcing. You need to visit all the teams to make sure that your info is correct. You need to correct all of the announcer game sheets so that you don’t make errors. You have to make sure that the MC has any info he needs and that you keep him on time. You need to be ready to backfill if problems come up. YOU NEED TO KNOW THE GAME AND THE RULES !!!

If you want to discuss more then feel free to email me. Remember that the MC and announcer job is not about ME but about THEM. Our job is to make it fun for everyone else even if it kills us. Have fun, Good Luck and I hope to hear from you at some regional (while I am in the stands enjoying).

6

I believe that Dan Green’s first announcing job was at the 2002 IRI when we asked if he would like to take up the job. Now Dan is announcing at a reginal almost every week of competition and I think that he is one of the best ones out there.

Dan Green & Paul Copioli = 2004 IRI :]

7

Off season competitions and connections are the key. I was the MC at IRI last Summer mostly because those crazy Indiana people took a chance on me. I had never been an MC or announcer for any type of FIRST event until IRI. I then did California games and Ford Sweet Repeat last fall. My very first ever annoncing job was at the Great Lakes Regional this year, because of a recommendation by Dave Verbrugge(connections). I also ended up being the MC at the Detroit Regional based on my IRI debut and worked with Steve W.

What I found is once you MC or announce at a Regional event and are good at it, you will then get asked to more events than you are able to do.

To add to what Steve said; announcing is much harder work for me than being MC. It took me several days to recover (voice, mostly) from Great Lakes.

To directly answer your question: find out who the volunteer coordinator is for the Regional in your area and see if you can be an MC or announcer.

-Paul

8

I asked Ron Partridge at UTC how he got announcing. Ron is one of the most experienced announcers and IMHO, the best. He sad that way back when (95-98, I’m guessing) he used to own the sound system that was used for Rumble at the Rock, in Plymouth MA. Since he owned the equipment, he owned the mic. He eventually started giving play by play announcing. It grew from there and now he does a few regionals each year and nationals.
The moral of the story: Buy concert grade sound systems and bring them to off-season comps. :smiley:
I guess I’m just reiterating what everyone else said, start at off-season comps.

9

I agree with everything that has been said so far! To get the exposure you should try volunteering for pit announcer. It’s not as glamorous but you do get close to all the people running the event, get your voice heard, show your ability to work under pressure and demonstrate your interaction with the teams. I did pit announcing at the Championship in 2002 (and 2004) and was asked this year to announce at Palmetto. Announcing is a blast! There was a connection involved as well. Our team was very involved in planning the event and one of our members was the volunteer coordinator. Good luck!

10

The message here seems to be “find the right connections.” Yea, and that offseason rep builder as well. Guess I’ll start working on those things. heh.

11

Joel,

Looking to get into the announcing biz? Maybe at one of the offseasons that I announce this summer, we could join forces. Do some play by play and color commentary…what do ya say? I can see it now, Grady and Johnson, the Al Micheals and John Madden of FIRST! :smiley:

Also, I also recommend to people to not just volunteer for announcer positions, but also any position you can get. Get to know the people who run the events, ya never know how they may help ya get to your goal.

-Andy Grady

12

Andy: Sure thing, sounds like fun.

See M.O.R.T., connections. Thats one of the reasons FIRST isn’t very different from the real world. Decent grades, like an offseason comp, gets your name out there, and connections direct your name to the right person. Its quite interesting if you ask me.

Oh, remember, if you don’t do a good job, then you get unhired, so it isn’t all about having the right connections :).

PS: I’m a college freshman on summer vacation, so the advice is biased, if you couldn’t already tell ;).

13

Bingo. Alert-alert-alert Aaaauuuuugggaaaa!

Joel Johnson has just hit the nail on the head. FIRST is the most impressive organization for “connections” and networking that I have been a part of.

What other organization combines high school students with astronauts, engineers, business leaders, award-winning teachers, inventors, and billionaires?

Networking and connections is where it is at.

Andy B.

14

Yep.
I can attest to this.

Play your FIRST connections when you’re looking for jobs. You never know who will see your resume and decide to give you a shot.

Joel Johnson, wise beyond his years.

15

…except when the one person you’ve met that works for the company you adore takes six months to reply to your e-mails…

I’m not bitter or anything, though :stuck_out_tongue:

16

Play-by-play announcing is one of the hardest jobs I know in FIRST.
Announcers got to have stamina, wit, personality, and a good altitude. Small mistakes are embarrassing and can be costly. When you are tired, it becomes immediately obvious to everyone unless you have good articulation control.
A job I can’t do if my life depends on it!
This year our rookie announcer Mike start announcing at the Thursday practice rounds in 2003. He got the chance because he just asked us.
In 2004 Mike was co-announcer at our State FLL Tournament and co-announced the 2004 NYC Regional. Fortunately, we also got lucky when Andy Grady volunteered to help on Saturday. Mike was losing his voice by then.
I only can speak for our regional; we are always looking for new volunteers for the pit, practice rounds, elimination rounds and final rounds announcer.
So just ask the volunteer coordinator or director of the regionals, you never know where the opportunities are. How do you get to know them? Volunteer and corner them at the volunteer cafeteria!

17

I will second that. I doubt I will have any articulation control at anytime during any competition. It is always great working with the announcers at the scoring table. I admire them a lot of doing such an important job in front of so many people. They don’t get enough credit for what they do. They are basically one of the few people who is going to make the competition look either really good, or really boring.

Volunteering for FIRST is a rather interesting experience. On one hand, because FIRST needs as much volunteers as they can get, almost anyone can volunteer at a competition. On the other hand, FIRST has a certain standard on the quality of its competitions, so they need experienced folks who’ve done it before to fill in some of the important positions. Announcing is one of them. Field supervisor and scorekeeper is another.

It really helps to show your skills before you volunteer yourself for a job such as being an announcer. It also helps to talk to the people who makes the decision for the competition about it and make sure they know to keep you in mind when assigning jobs.

When it comes down to it, it depend on a lot of factors. How many people have volunteered already, how well the regional committee chairperson / regional director knows you, how well you are at your job, how much experience you have in FIRST, etc etc etc.

There is no certainty to it, however. Sometimes, popular events like IRI are filled with requests to be volunteers, and they may not have enough jobs to give out. Sometimes, for event like Cal Games, we can get as much volunteers as we can get, so we let as many people who wants to volunteer come help as they can, but we make sure we try to make sure we train the volunteers to be real good.

Soooo… If you are going to an off season competition, you should e-mail the person organizing the event. Chances are, you will get some time to practice being an announcer at one or two event. Then you keep doing more and more, and start talking to people about who to talk to regarding volunteering at competitions, and you keep asking higher and higher up the chain until you hit the one person who makes the decision, which is usually the regional director or regional committee chairperson.

By the way, as long as you are good, I am sure they will manage to get to you ;-).

18

So far the unanimous (sp?) result is that I need to 1) get connections and 2) practice at off seasons comps. Well I’m happy to say that I did my FIRST announcing job at PARC. The gracious staff there let me call the plays for 20 or so matches. The first few were a little weird, but I really did get the hang of it, and have decided that I really want to do this. Any suggestions on where to take this next?

19

I was impressed with your announcing skills at PARC, I definately sensed that you had promise. I’d say, keep practicing and if you can… get tips from the pro’s, and think of different ‘transitioning’ words to use (ex: you used ‘meanwhile’ a lot, try coming up with more phrases).

Yup, keep stepping in at offseasons… and maybe sign up as a trainee for a Regional next year.

Did you like my head-ref pencil twirl? :smiley:

20

I’d just like to wish you lots of luck on your announcing career. From what it wounds like, you did a great job at PARC and you seem to be the kind of guy that could do a good job out there.