So, the next time you hear "Wilfert..."
Jim Nantz is the lead play-by-play broadcaster for NFL games on CBS. I didn't hear a lot of his work until recently because, as many of you know, I used to go to all of the Patriots' games in a season. Don't do that right now, so as a result, I've had to become reacquainted with my TV and my easy chair on Sunday afternoons when the lads are on the road.
Often times, Nantz and Phil Simms are assigned to the Patriots because the Patriots are the best the AFC has to offer, and CBS has the AFC package. When I'm at Gillette, the TV feed goes to the press box monitors with the sound turned off, so we aren't annoyed by the announcers and can just be annoyed by some of the chatty know-it-alls among the media corps.
Yeah, I'm one of those. But it's still fun to see how many heads turn when I start my impersonation of Patriots' owner Robert Kraft.
Even when Nantz and Simms are elsewhere, I don't get to listen much. Other games are on TV sets throughout the two-floor Gillette press box, but rarely is the sound up. And when I've been on the road, some stadiums have a bank of TVs with all of the games on them. So, say I get to Heinz Field in Pittsburgh at about noon and the Patriots and Steelers are playing at 4:15. I'll set up at my seat, do some pre-game work, and then retire to the press box lounge for lunch and some happy by-play with other reporters while, in the background, all of the 1 p.m. games are playing on various monitors. But unless you want to annoy everyone in the lounge, you leave the sound down and watch the pretty pictures.
Anyway, I've listed to the lead CBS team lately and found that Nantz has an annoying habit of pronouncing the name of nose tackle Vince Wilfork as "Wilfert." It's not hard to pronounce ... heck, he gets "Gostkowski" right (the "t" is silent), but you'd think Wilfork would be easy.
Well, as it turns out, Nantz may be a little distracted these days. He in the midst of an incredibly messy divorce, the sort of divorce that turnes into cheesy dramas on the Lifetime network. Check out this story from the Connecticut Post newspaper, and you'll see that the lifestyles of the rich and famous aren't always as wonderful as they're cut out to be.
Reading this story, it made me happy to know that because I'm neither rich nor famous, no one will ever have to write this kind of story about me. There are benefits to obscurity, after all.
Often times, Nantz and Phil Simms are assigned to the Patriots because the Patriots are the best the AFC has to offer, and CBS has the AFC package. When I'm at Gillette, the TV feed goes to the press box monitors with the sound turned off, so we aren't annoyed by the announcers and can just be annoyed by some of the chatty know-it-alls among the media corps.
Yeah, I'm one of those. But it's still fun to see how many heads turn when I start my impersonation of Patriots' owner Robert Kraft.
Even when Nantz and Simms are elsewhere, I don't get to listen much. Other games are on TV sets throughout the two-floor Gillette press box, but rarely is the sound up. And when I've been on the road, some stadiums have a bank of TVs with all of the games on them. So, say I get to Heinz Field in Pittsburgh at about noon and the Patriots and Steelers are playing at 4:15. I'll set up at my seat, do some pre-game work, and then retire to the press box lounge for lunch and some happy by-play with other reporters while, in the background, all of the 1 p.m. games are playing on various monitors. But unless you want to annoy everyone in the lounge, you leave the sound down and watch the pretty pictures.
Anyway, I've listed to the lead CBS team lately and found that Nantz has an annoying habit of pronouncing the name of nose tackle Vince Wilfork as "Wilfert." It's not hard to pronounce ... heck, he gets "Gostkowski" right (the "t" is silent), but you'd think Wilfork would be easy.
Well, as it turns out, Nantz may be a little distracted these days. He in the midst of an incredibly messy divorce, the sort of divorce that turnes into cheesy dramas on the Lifetime network. Check out this story from the Connecticut Post newspaper, and you'll see that the lifestyles of the rich and famous aren't always as wonderful as they're cut out to be.
Reading this story, it made me happy to know that because I'm neither rich nor famous, no one will ever have to write this kind of story about me. There are benefits to obscurity, after all.
Views: 3
Comment
© 2012 Created by Colin Blaney.
You need to be a member of The Sun Chronicle to add comments!
Join The Sun Chronicle