Color Commentary Quotes

I never in my wildest imagination dreamed that I would somehow become a sports commentator.

After I retired, I spent a quarter of a century in the business, and when I retired and a new regime took over, Vince McMahon Jr. and that, and in the beginning I went back to help out. I color commentated with him, but then I started to see things that were disturbing to me.

I wanted to be Red Barber, Mel Allen or Howard Cosell. I loved their personalities and all of their sounds.

John McEnroe...was arguably the best serve-and-volley man of all time, but then McEnroe was an exception to pretty much every predictive norm there was. At his peak (say 1980 to 1984), he was the greatest tennis player who ever lived-the most talented, the most beautiful, the most tormented: a genius. For me, watching McEnroe don a blue polyester blazer and do stiff lame truistic color commentary for TV is like watching Faulkner do a Gap ad.

Announcers don't do enough of the cat-and-mouse strategy and all the work that goes into it. You watch a broadcast and guys get the pitches wrong.

Kevin Nash came to me; he goes, 'Book, hey, Book, man, you know, this nWo thing is getting real hot, bro. And, man, we need some color, man.' I swear to God, that's how he said it! 'We need some color, bro.' He goes, 'We want to bring you in.' I go, 'Man, thanks, but no thanks. No way.' I said, 'I'm a solo act, man.'

When I started as a color man in the booth with CBS, I would make footballs out of a roll of toilet paper.

I want to be the Howard Cosell of MMA.

I did commentary with Excalibur. It is an extremely, extremely difficult job. It gave me a whole new appreciation to how on point you need to be and how careful you need to because I was a almost like a color aspect of it.

My first broadcast partner provided color commentary even though he was totally blind. Leroy McGuirk was a former NCAA Wrestling Champion at Oklahoma State University and long time kingpin of the NWA Junior Heavyweight Division before losing his sight in a car accident in Little Rock in the early 1950s.

I could see myself doing more color in the future - I love being able to analyze game by game and share the stories with the players.

Chick Hearn was my favorite broadcaster ever - he's the one who taught me to think basketball, how to love basketball.

Sports commentating is the answer for a restless brain like mine. I can never get bored because there is an infinite amount to know.

In radio, you are the game, so to speak - you have to describe every aspect. In TV, I've always felt less is more, and it's really a question of my setting up the color analyst more than anything else.

You don't realize how easy this game is until you get up in that broadcasting booth.

I've been lucky to broadcast some great events and to broadcast the exploits of some great players.

Mike Goldberg and Mauro Ranallo are two of the best in our business, and I couldn't be happier about them joining the Bellator family.

One of the best ones out there was a guy named Howard Cosell. He was the best.

Broadcasters calling a big game are often reminded to let the action breathe. A great moment of a televised game doesn't need any narration, which is why the announcers - the good ones, anyway - shut up at the celebration and let the pictures do the talking.

I want to be the black Dick Vitale.