Winter 2001 19 David Stluka

BOB RASHID Lucas & Lepay the By Tim Noonan heir mellifluous voices are synonymous with crowds roaring, clapping, and stomping at Camp Randall, with the sound of the marching band and the smell of brats in the bracing fall air. T Matt Lepay and Mike Lucas are announcing another Badger football game for radio listeners, and they have the dynamics of a well-oiled comedy team. During the Western Kentucky game, you might have caught this exchange: Lepay:“Pimpleton forced out of bounds by Scott Starks at the nine-yard line, and then [unbelievingly] Pimpleton goes over the fence . dividing the field from the stands area, and . .” Lepay seems at a loss, but Lucas jumps in: “He’s gonna have to buy a ticket to get back in.” 18 ON WISCONSIN Lepay responds, “Yeah, I guess so,” Marty Brennaman,” he says. “This is coaches. During game weeks, practices and seamlessly picks up the thread as what I always wanted to do.” are closed, so I do tons of reading, pore the Hilltoppers are forced to punt, Lepay started on his career path in through media guides. I wear out one and the Badgers eventually go on to college. In 1984, during his last semester VCR per year watching opponents’ win the game. at Ohio State, he found a job in Colum- tapes. I spend hours looking at the Lepay and Lucas are the broadcast bus as WNCI’s morning sports guy. teams.” He also hosts weekly coaches’ team for Wisconsin’s Badger Radio Net- “I read sports, did some news reading, shows, fills in for the local CBS affiliate, work, which covers all of UW-Madison’s covered the Rose Bowl. WNCI was my and speaks regularly to booster clubs football and men’s basketball games. education in what real radio was about. and Madison civic groups. Every Saturday in the fall and several I decided then that I wanted to be the “The key to success as a play-by-play times a week during basketball season, voice for a major college team within five guy,” says Lepay, is to be versatile. “I their commentary blankets the lake- years of graduation.” started as a news reporter. I covered dappled landscape of Wisconsin from elections. I covered crime stories. As a Amery to West Bend, as they call the Lepay invests far more time play-by-play guy, you are in essence games over the network’s fifty-two radio covering a sporting news event. So you stations, and to tens of thousands of in doing homework than in read as much as you can, and you work listeners on the Internet. Lepay, the play- calling the games. “I wear to expand your horizons. That gives you by-play announcer, is the straight man, context for what you are covering.” providing all the facts — who tackled out one VCR per year Lepay’s job is made easier by his whom, who made the three-pointer, watching opponents’ tapes,” partner’s experience. Beloit native Mike who’s carrying the ball, who’s the new he says.“I spend hours Lucas is one of the senior members of the substitute. Lucas, the color analyst, Wisconsin sports family. While attending interprets the action, referring to other looking at the teams.” the UW in the late sixties, he wrote for similar plays or circumstances, giving the Daily Cardinal and Badger Herald, and background on the players, and com- For starters, Lepay kicked around in 1971, he took a position with the menting on the wisdom, or lack thereof, small Ohio towns, doing high-school Capital Times, where he still works today, of a certain coaching decision. play-by-play, American Legion baseball, writing a regular sports column. Because Lepay’s job calls for precision and and everything else. He called three to of his skills as a journalist, his specialty dependability, and as a friendly, straight- four games a week, as well as working in sports, his extensive University of shooting optimist, he has the perfect regular, eight-hour disc jockey shifts. Wisconsin experience, and his editorial personality for it. On the athletic field, “I played the music of yesteryear, read opinions, he was soon recruited to cover he would be the well-liked captain of the the obituaries — everything,” he says. Badger sports in other media. team, a dependable fullback who may Play-by-play jobs at major schools Lucas began with talk shows in 1976 not break too many long runs, but who are plum assignments with hundreds of on WIBA and color analysis in 1977 with always gets you your yardage. applicants. The winner often has an hockey announcer Chuck Kaiton, who Lucas is the creative, quick thinker inside track with connections at the left Madison for a job with the World who has to improvise in an unfolding school or in the state. It is a tribute to Hockey Association. Lucas started doing situation. He never knows what’s going Lepay’s skill that he had none of these. tape-delay football and basketball on to happen, nor what Lepay, the first He simply saw an ad in 1988, and then WHA-TV in the early eighties, and responder to every development, is going applied for and won the job, meeting his began working with Lepay in 1994. to say about it. Part cynic, part humorist, five-year goal. Many color analysts were once play- part spin-meister, Lucas has more edge “I was scared to death about the ers, such as Ed Podolak, Iowa’s former than the upbeat Lepay. He’s the crafty, snow, plus it was the biggest job I’d ever All-American and Super Bowl star, and flashy halfback who might make three had,” he says. “It was intimidating. And former pro-football icon Kenny “Snake” feints and then tear off in a direction being an Ohio State graduate put me in a Stabler at Alabama. Ex-players bring nobody expected. Together, Lucas and position to take a certain amount of grief both name recognition and insider Lepay are a professional marriage of from Wisconsin people. But that’s kind knowledge to the broadcast. But Lucas reporter and pundit. of fun.” has other attributes. “I probably spend more time with Lepay invests far more time in doing He’s worked with three different Mike than my wife during the season,” homework than in calling the games. sports on both radio and TV for years. says Lepay. An Ohio native, he fell in “Game preparation is extensive. During “When the situation warrants,” he says, love with sports broadcasting as a kid. fall camp, I try to go to every practice — “I can put some of the things that have “I grew up a fan of the Cincinnati Reds, twice a day during two-a-days — and happened on the field into historical and [announcers] Al Michaels and interview a number of players and perspective.” WINTER 2001 19 DAVID STLUKA DAVID A multi-tasker like his partner, Lucas still hosts talk shows, provides daily radio commentaries, and has written two books. But in terms of his job in the booth, Lucas claims that the most impor- tant part of a successful broadcast is chemistry: “You have to feel good about the person next to you.” It’s also helpful to be on good terms with the coaches, who can make your job easy or hellish. “My relationship with [football coach] Barry Alvarez is terrific,” says Lepay. “I do his TV shows. I also had a terrific relationship with [former basketball coach] Dick Bennett.” Badger radio football broadcasts used to involve a couple of guys in the Basketball engineer Dave McCann, Matt Lepay, and Mike Lucas brought the excitement of the booth, devoting about a tenth of their Final Four to Badger fans who couldn’t make it to Indianapolis in 2000. Away from the court, jobs to covering the game for the local Lepay, the guy who needs context, reads history to relax. Lucas also relaxes by reading radio station. Today, they require up to a . about Wisconsin sports, broadcasting, or anything else to help him on the job. dozen people across a large swath of the Midwest, devoting more than forty hours game, Lucas and Lepay split duties in Some schools actually have an inde- per person per week in a high-tech, the locker room, interviewing coaches pendent spotter whose sole job is to point satellite operation. But the success of the and players, and in the booth, giving a out names. The University of Iowa’s Red broadcast still depends on the profession- post-mortem on the game — discussing MacAleece once found his spotter at a alism, knowledge, and friendly familiar- the emerging stars, injuries, final stats, loss for the name of a fifth-string opposi- ity of those same two guys in the booth. and upcoming games. Finally, a couple tion player who had just come into the Wisconsin fans are fortunate to have one of hours after the last whistle and maybe game. When the spotter gave a bewil- of the most respected and talented duos ten hours after the day began, the dered shrug, MacAleece reported with in all of sports broadcasting. broadcast concludes. nary a pause that “Huck Tucker” had After the week’s preparation, the One of the enduring mysteries just come into the game. broadcast itself, from pre-game show for careful listeners surrounds an The next week the spotter was home through post-game report, is a tightly announcer’s ability to call the name sick listening to the game on the radio, run affair.

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