Blogpoll #7 is up at ATL Eagle, and Bill's got a couple of delicious questions about college media types for us to sink our platinum teeth into. Regardez:
1. What member of the mainstream sports media (preferably one who covers college sports) makes your skin crawl, blood boil, forces you to change the channel or hit mute? Why?
2. What writer, broadcaster, show, website etc. deserves more recognition? Who is someone we should all be reading, watching or listening to?
1. Chris Berman, of course, but they don't let him get near the great game, if only for the fear that college students, born too late to fall for even an iota of his Huey Lewis-lovin', I-got-straight-in-the-eighties, lameass-nickname-creatin' schtick would storm the Gameday set and rip him to bad lunchmeat with their bare angry hands. We don't want that to happen, mind you--we just want to throw a chaise lounge at him as hard as we can and let bygones be bygones.
In the college ranks, no one puts a soggier blanket around the game than joyless sourpuss Mike Gottfried. You get the feeling that Gottfried thinks the whole endeavour of being involved in covering the college game was the biggest vocational mistake of his life, taking to a broadcast with all the enthusiasm of a Korean nail tech scraping the fungus out from someone's toes. Mistakes send him into quiet misery, so much so that you wonder if his broadcast partners aren't given instructions to hide all the sharp objects and firearms before they enter the booth. ("Keep the windows bolted shut, y'all! That ain't happening live on the Worldwide Leader!") He does know his stuff, but who cares when he's grumbling into his decaf coffee and praying for a massive stroke during a commercial break. A total drip. We'd take delusional Brent Musberger and his Olbuddyjackaruuuuute anyday.
Mike Gottfried, on right, willing the blood vessels in his brain to explode.
2. Who doesn't get enough credit? Besides Bill's pick, the inimitable Wes Durham of Atlanta Falcons and Georgia Tech fame? We're torn here, since we seem to be awash in quality local and national talent most of the time, but a few picks from both will be as close as we can get to playing in the lines.
Nessler. So good he should go by the single moniker, like Cher or Bono. Hell, we get excited listening to him on NCAA 2006 for the XBox: "He can scoot!" We especially love it when he says that after a 300-lb lineman scoops up a fumble and coronaries his way down the field at 2 mph.
The Twang Twins: Terry Bowden/Bill Curry. Once the burning sensation subsides...okay, now we can talk. Much as we hate to admit it, it helps to have a tubby midget with a funny accent as a color guy. Bowden provides accurate and occasionally daring commentary in both writing for Yahoo! and on ABC as a studio and sometimes-in-game-color guy, and never fails to sound like he just got out of a 1956 Ford pickup loaded with illegal hooch while doing it. He also provides some humanity in a room dominated by the antiseptic John Saunders, who is almost too good as the slick point man in the room. (Saunders, by the way...doesn't remind you a bit of Dr. Julius Hibbert from the Simpsons, eh, does he?)
Bill Curry is genteel, smarter than his coaching stint at Kentucky would suggest, and consistently teaches the viewer something they didn't know. His work with Mike Golic on ESPN is a blast because the two actually sound like really intelligent football guys parsing out the game in their living room, interspersing the hard analysis with personal anecdote without ever overshadowing the action.
Radio nominee: Nick Cellini, 790 the Zone, Atlanta. We love the anger, but also the underrated wit. Por ejemplo: when Phil Mickelson bragged about training hard for the upcoming tour, Cellini suggested that his routine consisted of "I lift the party sub to my mouth...I release the party sub to the table." Occasionally breaks down--literally--on air. Was half of the greatest radio show ever, The Bottom Line, which boasted about "being big in prisons," interviewed O.J. Simpson, and featured a glorious amount of pro wrestling talk. We still experience chronic pain from its absence in the middle of our day.
Web nominee: Ian, Sexy Results. The nastiest one-liners in the business. A career on air would last five minutes and end in FCC fines, sure...but oh, what a five minutes they would be.