Fathers and sons have all kinds of relationships. Some become best friends as the kid grows into adulthood. Others don’t talk at all. Some keep a respectable distance – still in touch but not part of each other’s every day lives. Others are linked in ways beyond just familial ties.
Barrett Sports Media is putting a focus on that last group in celebration of Father’s Day. Many sons follow their dads into the family business. It is a unique and special path when that business is broadcasting.
Plenty of the voices you know are the progeny of the voices your parents know. We asked five of them about the influence their father’s work and the environments they were exposed to as kids had on their career.
Chip Caray on dad Skip and grandad Harry:
“We had divorce in our family, and the way that I kept up with them was by watching them on television coming home from high school in St. Louis. I’d see Harry on WGN in the daytime and my dad on the TBS games when the Braves were playing on the west coast back when they were on the National League West. I figured, ‘If I can’t play baseball, this is kind of a cool way to stay involved in the game.’ Luckily for me, when I’d have my summer visitations, I’d get to go to the ballpark and sit behind my dad in the radio and TV booth and watch what he did.”
“Like the old cliche goes, the bug really bit me. The moment that I knew for sure; I was in high school doing one of those sort of weekend internships when I’d be in Atlanta with my dad. He had a game-winning home run call on the radio and we drove home that night after that game against the Dodgers, and they played the home run call of my father at midnight, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I said to my dad, ‘I’d really like to do that someday.’ He didn’t say a word; we drove home in silence; we sat down at his house at 1:00 in the morning. He poured himself a cocktail; I had a bite to eat; and he said, ‘Were you serious what you said in the car?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘Okay, we start tomorrow.’”
Joe Buck on dad Jack:
“I just wanted to be my dad. It’s not like I grew up going, ‘Hey, I really want to be the guy who calls the Super Bowl’ or ‘I really want to be the guy who calls the World Series.’ I guess that was somewhere out there in my mind, but I just wanted to be my dad. I think when you’re a kid and you’re close with, hopefully both parents, but one parent — and I was, by the way; I’m so close to my mom. When you see that parent go to work every day and you see how happy work makes them — no matter what they do — if they’re a lawyer; a plumber; a police officer; an astronaut; or a broadcaster — and you see that, I think it’s only natural that you want to kind of follow in those footsteps. It was a great, fun life. Thankfully, I came along at a time when my dad was ready to kind of take a kid with him to work, and so I was on Cardinals road trips when I was a little kid flying on team charters and being around a broadcast and everything else that is involved with that. It lit a fire in me that really eliminated any other possibility of me doing anything else. This is all I’ve ever wanted to do.”
Noah Eagle on dad Ian:
“Growing up around it seeing my dad every day — when you have a close relationship with a parent, I think it’s just easy to want to emulate and to want to be like that parent. Eventually that’s what happened for me. It wasn’t automatic; I didn’t just immediately say, ‘This is what I’m going to do,’ but I think right around 13 years old was when I made the conscious effort — and not even effort but decision to keep in the back of my head, ‘One day that’s what I’m going to do. One day, I think, that’s exciting to me,’ because I saw him every morning wake up and be excited to go to work; to be excited to do the prep; to be excited to interact with the people. That’s what drew me to it.”
Mark Packer on dad Billy:
“Gotta be honest, growing up as Billy Packer’s son had its benefits. Granted there were some added pressures and inconveniences, but the good certainly outweighed the bad.
I loved tagging along on road trips whether it be an ACC game, or a national broadcast. Being able to meet players, coaches and other broadcasters was a joy. It helped to establish contacts that I would later implement as a media host.
Watching Billy prepare for games was the biggest benefit to my career. He loved the research and prep work. It is the single, most important trait that I have incorporated with my career. You gotta do the work. When I listen or watch a game or show, it’s obvious to me which announcers have done the work, and which ones are BS-artists.
This will be my first Father’s Day without Billy. He passed away in January….I miss him dearly.
Happy Father’s Day to all the Dads!”
Dads that aren’t in the broadcasting field can steer their kids in that direction by having similar access. That is another path that has been followed in this industry. It would only be right to acknowledge those relationships too.
Ryan Ruocco on dad Peter:
“When I would watch games, my dad and I would always talk about the announcers and different things they’d say or do that resonated with us. It just made me want to do it. Even from a really young age — if you look at my fifth grade yearbook for career goals — it will say, ‘To play and announce for the Yankees.’ Obviously the playing part didn’t work out but the announcing part has. I just always felt like I knew I’d want to be close to the energy of the game and I thought if I wasn’t going to be able to play or coach, then play-by-play would be the thing that’d be next closest to the energy of the game.”
It’s a day that means all kinds of things to all kinds of people and it is a day worth celebrating, particularly for those of us in sports media, who probably got our love of football, baseball, basketball, or whatever passed down to us. So, do a little bit better for the dads and dad-like figures in your life this year. They don’t need another tie.
