Princeton Weekly Bulletin October 5, 1998
The Voice of Tiger Football
"If I can't be in there playing, announcing is the next best thing"By Caroline Moseley
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She? You bet. It was senior Wendy Herm's voice you heard over the brand-new public address system in the brand-new Princeton Stadium when Princeton played Cornell on September 19 and her voice you can expect to hear when Princeton plays Brown on Community Day, October 10.
From her "Welcome to the 81st meeting of the Cornell Big Red and the Princeton Tigers!" to "And the final score here in Princeton Stadium is Cornell 0, Princeton 6," Herm reported all the plays: "Pass complete to [Ryan] Crowley ['99]"; "sack by David Ferrara ['00]"; "pass complete to Byrne, Gerry Wilson ['00] on the tackle." In a major pile-up, it was, "Justin Bush, brought down by a host of Tiger defenders."
Herm, who will announce all home games during the stadium's inaugural season, is no novice at the mike. She was public address announcer for last year's men's soccer, women's basketball and football.
"This means home games only," she points out. "For away games in any sport, the college you're playing has its own announcer." Still, during last year's very atypical football season when all games were played away because the stadium was being built, Herm announced Princeton's two "home" games: at the College of New Jersey (against Fordham) and in Giants Stadium at the N.J. Meadowlands (against Yale).
No room for partiality
The anouncer's task varies from sport to sport, Herm says. "In soccer, there isn't much information to get to the crowd; you announce the starting line-up, substitutions and goals scored."
Basketball, she says, "is faster paced, with more scoring. Crowd emotions tend to run higher, and you help get the crowd involved." At the women's basketball games, she says, "I announce the other team's starting line-up in a normal voice." Then, with rising inflec-tion and exitement, she proclaims, "And HERE are your PRRRinceton TIGERS!"
Herm also did color commentary for cable broadcaster RCN at last year's women's basketball game against Rider.
In football, however, "You're not playing to the crowd. You're relaying pertinent informationwho carried the ball, who made the tackle."
To aid in this enterprise, Herm has a "spotter" sitting beside her in the public address box. "I try to see who did what, and I report what I see; the spotter is backup." She also checks information on the scoreboard.
"I have a sheet in front of me with the teams broken down by position," she says. "If Princeton has the ball, I know who will generally be out there and who'll be the opposing team's defense, and vice versa when the opposition has the ball." In addition, she studies the roster ahead of time. Though she knows many of the Princeton players personally, "my job is observer and reporter," she says. "There's no room for partiality."
Herm has made the occasional miscall. "Maybe I thought someone made the carry, and it was someone else; or I might relay the wrong number of yards on a carry. But nothing terrible, so far."
Discrimination in sports
This fall Herm will announce women's basketball for the third season. A politics major, she expects to be busy writing her thesis on racial discrimination in sports during the spring semester. She will also be playing first base for the softball team. There, the sometime Voice of Princeton Tiger Football will be heard unamplified, cheering her own teammates.
After graduation, Herm hopes to work in sports broadcasting. An intern this past summer at ESPN Classic (formerly the Classic Sports Network) in New York City, she worked in five different departments: pro-duction, programming, promotion, marketing and operations. "I learned a lot."
To be a sports announcer, says Herm, who has "always had a tremen-dous interest in all sports," you need "complete enthusiasm for the sport and an urge to be right in the middle of things. If I can't be in there playing, announcing is the next best thing."