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WVU's Caridi Among Best in College Broadcasting
November 29, 2015 02:10 PM | Football
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - As I was listening to the broadcast from a rival team’s radio network the other day and was wondering who had the ball, who was winning the game and who the team was they were playing, it reminded me once again how fortunate we are to have Tony Caridi around to describe West Virginia University football and men’s basketball games.
Caridi is clearly one of the best in the business and he didn’t get that way by accident. He’s one of the best around because he puts the time in to be the best.
It takes a lot of effort to get prepared for a game broadcast, and Caridi never takes a shortcut when it comes to studying for the games he is describing.
You see it on the team charter when everyone else is sleeping or listening to their iPhones. Caridi is usually watching cutups on his iPad or studying those massive game charts he spends all week researching and preparing. He takes the time to talk to the people he needs to talk to during the week in order to get all of the information his listeners crave during games.
He can sense those climactic moments when he has to pick up the pace, or, when the games have become almost unbearably dull he knows how to deliver a little humor or come up with a fascinating story to give the broadcast a little boost.
The good ones know how to sprinkle in the right amount of statistics and information to make the games interesting, almost like a nice garnish to the main course for dinner, but not too much to the point where it overwhelms the listener.
That comes from experience. That comes from knowing your trade and that comes from always taking your work seriously.
But what makes Tony come off as authentic and original on the air is he never takes himself too seriously. He enjoys a good laugh and some good-natured ribbing with his sidekicks, Dwight Wallace on football broadcasts and Jay Jacobs on men’s basketball broadcasts. He’s got nicknames for them – “The Coach” for Wallace and “The Silver Fox” for Jacobs, and you can tell they enjoy each other’s company when they are calling games.
Trust me, that’s not always the case in the broadcasting business.
Caridi possesses the same boundless enthusiasm he had when he drove his light blue Ford Granada from Syracuse, New York, down to Morgantown for the first time in 1984, worked TV broadcasts for MSN in the late 1980s, called college football and basketball games for Mutual Radio Network in the early 1990s, and later when he became West Virginia’s permanent play-by-play man in 1997.
I once spotted for Tony when he did a West Virginia-Miami football game for Mutual Radio back in the early 1990s, and watched with great amusement the analyst working the game with him that day steal every single note Tony had put down on his game board because the guy was out into the wee hours of the morning with someone other than his wife and wasn't prepared for the broadcast. Tony just rolled with it like the true pro he is.
And some of the logistical things he’s had to overcome to call games would make Gulliver’s Travels seem like a ride to the local convenience store.
When he was working for the Atlantic 10 Network he once did a men’s basketball game at St. Joseph’s in Philadelphia at 4 p.m. and then hopped in a car with A-10 commissioner Ron Bertovich, his wife and two kids, and rode with them up to Piscataway, New Jersey, for a West Virginia men’s basketball game at Rutgers later that night.
There have been many other instances when he’s had to figure out how to be in two places at one time.
Once, he called two games on the same day from different times zones. He was in Charlotte, North Carolina, to describe West Virginia’s Continental Tire Bowl game against Virginia and when that game was over, he caught a commercial flight out to Las Vegas to call the second half of West Virginia’s men’s basketball game against UNLV at the Thomas and Mack Center.
“That’s the granddaddy of them all just because of the way the schedule worked out,” said Caridi before Saturday’s West Virginia-Iowa State football game. “I did the (Virginia) game, had a car waiting for me – (former WVU player) Mike Fox Limousine Service – got a ride to the airport and flew to Atlanta.
A look at Tony's elaborate game charts
“I couldn’t get a direct flight to Las Vegas, so I went through all of the traffic, got to Vegas, jumped into a cab and, ironically or coincidentally, the cab driver was a West Virginia guy and he drove me right up to the Thomas and Mack Center, which is close to the airport.”
Caridi said he arrived at the arena just as the teams were leaving the floor for halftime.
“(West Virginia player) Chaz Briggs was underneath the bleachers when I walked in to put my bags in the locker room and he had two Red Bulls in his hands chugging them down,” Caridi laughed. “Josh Yeager had 17 points in the first half and never got on the floor in the second half. I did the second half of the game after Kyle Wiggs started it and we lost on a late drive. That, to me, will always be the one (all other travel experiences compare to) doing two games in the same day in two different time zones.”
Therefore, his same-day, Charlotte-to-Vegas junket makes what he was required to do this weekend calling West Virginia’s men’s basketball games in the Las Vegas Invitational and then turning around to describe yesterday afternoon’s Iowa State football game seem like such a breeze.
Caridi said he worked all week preparing for Saturday’s football game, getting about 75 percent of his prep work done before flying out to Las Vegas with the men’s basketball team. When he arrived there he began preparing for West Virginia’s game against Richmond and then the morning after that, he started working on Friday night’s game against San Diego State.
Once he was done with his research and entered all of the relevant information into his laptop computer, he hustled down to the local Fed Ex store to print out his game charts.
Then, after Friday night’s game was finished, he boarded the team charter around 1:30 a.m. and flew back to Morgantown, arriving just in time to grab a quick shower, say good morning to his lovely wife, Joan, and drive over to the stadium with a Starbucks coffee in his hand to get ready for Saturday’s noon game against Iowa State.
So, how does he do it?
“I just keep everything in order … what’s next? What’s next? What’s next? Knock on wood, it all works out extremely well,” he said.
Actually, no luck is required to make those game broadcasts sound as good as Tony Caridi makes them sound – just a lot of hard work, effort, boundless enthusiasm and love for what he’s doing.
No wonder he’s one of the best in the business.
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