One of the busiest sports play-by-play announcers all year-round has to be Bob Wischusen for ESPN. Whether it is calling the New York Jets, or a hockey, college football, or college basketball game for ESPN, Wischusen is on your radio or TV all-year round. He also understands that no one wants to hear how busy his schedule is once they turn on a game he is calling.
Wischusen was a guest on The Adam Schein Podcast this week and he told Schein that with the crazy schedule he has, the key is having a short-term memory and understanding no one wants to hear him complain about what he does for a living.
“You obviously have to kind of have the ability to wipe your short-term memory and move on to the next game. You have to obviously delegate your time somewhat effectively as well to make sure you are not chasing the next game, but you are out ahead of it.
“If I’m someone that wants to listen to the Jets game, I’m going to turn the game on and listen to the game. If I happen to be calling a hockey game between your favorite team and someone else, you don’t care what bowl game I called two days ago or how I got there and how little sleep I had, you just want to watch the game. I get it. No one wants to hear you or me complain about our jobs.”
When it was known that the NHL TV rights were going to go back to ESPN, Wischusen knew he wanted to get involved even though he hadn’t called a hockey game since he was a substitute play-by-play voice of the New York Rangers for MSG Network. He appreciated that ESPN took a chance and gave him an opportunity to call NHL games for the network.
“It was not something I really dared to dream was possible. My first play-by-play experience at the pro level was actually with the Rangers. I left WFAN and went over to MSG when I was still the pre and postgame host for the Jets and hadn’t been elevated to the play-by-play role yet. I was given the opportunity to be the substitute , pinch-hitting play-by-play guy for MSG and the majority of that was Rangers and a lot of it was radio. I loved it.
“That was one of the happiest days I’ve had. I immediately went right into my boss’s office and said I want to be involved in this. Luckily enough, they kind of took a little bit of a leap of faith and let me do it because I had not called hockey for certainly more than 10 years, maybe less than 15. It had been a long time. They had the belief I can do it and put me on it without really ever having heard me do it. I will be forever grateful for them for having that faith in me to give me that chance to do it again because it is great.”
While Wischusen used to be a sports talk radio host in the early stages of his career and he told Schein he does miss that aspect of what he does, he mentioned how he enjoys being part of the event when he does play-by-play rather than waiting for the event to be over when he was at WFAN in New York or WQAM-AM in Miami.
“Yes, because I think that what is in my DNA, you’re passionate about sports for whatever reason. I know I am. I don’t know why when I was 8, or 9, or 10 years I would watch these games on TV and I would emotionally get wrapped up in them…None of us can specifically say why. Because in my nature of irrationally caring about sports and sports events, you always want to scratch that itch and get your opinion out there and debate as well.
“If you were to ask me when I was 21, 22 years old, what would you like to do for the rest of your life? At the time, I would have said I want to be like Mike and the Mad Dog. You want to host afternoon drive and watch all the games and yell and scream at people about them the next day. What can be more fun than that?
“It did tilt more towards play-by-play because in my world, I started to understand it’s a lot of fun to be at the event. It’s great to be on before and after the event and to be waiting for the event to be over so that you can then vent about it, but nothing beats being at the event for me because I think part of that DNA I’m talking about is you love the games, you love the crowd, you love the drama, you love the strategy, all of that lends itself towards wanting to be there and in a very small way, being part of it.”
