LAS VEGAS - The Pac-12 tournament should deliver an impressive amount of entertainment at T-Mobile Arena this week.
On-court proceedings can also be complicated.
Multiple Pac-12 Network broadcasts, with Bill Walton on call for joy and mayhem - or is it nonsense and madness? - sure to rule the airwaves.
One of the greatest players in college basketball history is one of the game's most polarizing broadcasters. There is no middle ground when it comes to the champions of the "Conference of Champions".
But what is it like working with Walton during the broadcast? How does he prepare for the games? Does he even prepare?
Plus, do you have to know every Grateful Dead song by heart, or only half of them, to get the assignment?
We asked three play-by-play announcers who know Walton best: Dave Pass, who serves as Walton's foil — errant, sidekick on the ESPN broadcast; Ted Robinson, who works with Walton on the Pac-12 Network; and Roxy Bernstein, who pair up with Walton on both networks.
When reading the following first-person accounts, please note: The interviews were conducted separately last week, but have been put together to create a sense of a roundtable discussion and to let the topics flow from one to the next.
LAS VEGAS - The Pac-12 tournament should deliver an impressive amount of entertainment at T-Mobile Arena this week.
On-court proceedings can also be complicated.
Multiple Pac-12 Network broadcasts, with Bill Walton on call for joy and mayhem - or is it nonsense and madness? - sure to rule the airwaves.
One of the greatest players in college basketball history is one of the game's most polarizing broadcasters. There is no middle ground when it comes to the champions of the "Conference of Champions".
But what is it like working with Walton during the broadcast? How does he prepare for the games? Does he even prepare?
Plus, do you have to know every Grateful Dead song by heart, or only half of them, to get the assignment?
We asked three play-by-play announcers who know Walton best: Dave Pass, who serves as Walton's foil — errant, sidekick on the ESPN broadcast; Ted Robinson, who works with Walton on the Pac-12 Network; and Roxy Bernstein, who pair up with Walton on both networks.
When reading the following first-person accounts, please note: The interviews were conducted separately last week, but have been put together to create a sense of a roundtable discussion and to let the topics flow from one to the next.
Bernstein: "Working with other announcers took some time to get used to the differences. In the beginning, I was thinking that I had to keep up with the Bills and manage the game as well."
Pasch: "What's hilarious and heartwarming is that when Bill plays a game, it looks like he's getting ready for Game 7 of the NBA Finals. He's 90 minutes from tipoff Starts earlier and keeps to a stretching routine. He's breathing in energy chews and protein shakes and bars. It looks like he's ready to play a game and even though I'm his partner on the broadcast, in some ways I am like Karim (Abdul-Jabbar) - I am against the bill. That shows you how important it is to him."
Robinson: "I did a game job with (Pac-12 network analyst) Eddie House. I chatted with both coaches before the game, asking them who was healthy and all that stuff and how to drive Eddie during the broadcast. But Bill is so focused on preparation that he goes into a shootaround"—a light workout several hours before tipoff—"and talks to people around the program about the players. He'd do the same thing. That's what I usually do. So when I work with Bill, I don't deal with the background of the players. I focus on the metrics."
Bernstein: "I prepare for a game, no matter who the analyst is, whether it's Sean Farnham or (former Arizona standout) Corey Williams or Don McLean. We have production meetings and discuss topics and ideas. But It's totally different with Bill. He keeps us completely in the dark about what he's going to do during the broadcast. He wants our reaction to be like that of the audience. Nothing fictional, nothing Not staged. It's all organic."
Pasch: "One thing that's unfair to Bill is that a lot of people think he doesn't prepare and talks about what he wants. He really has pages and pages of notes. He Goes into the shootaround, and even though it's a team we've been to a number of times, he talks to the coaches and the sports information directors.
Robinson: "There's only one analyst I've ever worked with, who's done it, and I've worked with people like Clark Kellogg and Bill Raftery. And that was Al McGuire. I did a game with Al. It was Ohio State against Michigan with the Fab Five. And we went to the Michigan shootaround and Al was in the stands with the manager and the equipment guy and he'd say, 'Tell me about the kids.' Bill is in that pattern. He goes to the people around the team to get to know the players."
Bernstein: "Before the season starts, he talks to each team's sports information director for 90 minutes to get backstories on players and coaches and even coaches. If people knew how much he had Have worked hard."
Pasch: "He wouldn't talk to me before a game. He saves it all for air, like when you don't see the bride before the wedding."
Bernstein: "At the time of shooting, he sits on the opposite end of the court. I'll ask him about his wife, Lori. And he'll say, 'Save it for the wind, Roxy.'"
Robinson: "I love it. It's like working with John McEnroe."
Pasch: "I don't take nearly as many notes before a game working with Bill because most of them don't get broadcast. But I have to focus. Bill might be talking about something, and I need to know that." All that is needed is a man from the 3-point boundary to have two of his last 15.
Bernstein: "He's definitely planning on going into games about the points he wants to get across. Some games we have to keep him in focus. There was a UCLA-Oregon game in 2017 when Lonzo Ball went to the Bruins. Was along and Oregon had a really good team, and I'm like, 'Hey Bill, it's a four-point game.' And then his insight into basketball was off the charts. He laid everything out. He may be a nuts-and-bolts analyst, but he doesn't want that."
Robinson: "Bill was in a very dark place once in his life with health problems. He found a doctor who took the pain away. He'd work as long as he could. He's able to maneuver, he can fly." He can drive, and he can drive. He's had 38 surgeries or something like that.
Bernstein: "All the injuries and surgeries he's gone through, he feels like there's an opportunity to teach a younger audience about basketball. But he doesn't take himself too seriously. He says, 'Anything from me' Ask. I am an open book.
Robinson: "I told him that I decided on my college on January 19, 1974, the day UCLA's 88-game winning streak ended, because of the atmosphere at Notre Dame. I decided that's where I wanted to go. Bill still says it's the worst day of his life."
Pasch: "He jokes about me growing up on an ostrich farm in Arizona. A few years ago, there was a player in Arizona named Stone Gettingtings. Bill brought me a gift. It was a huge stone, and Then he asked me if I had ever been stoned."
Robinson: "The thing that's so different about Bill is that over the past 10 years, he's known me. And he asks me questions about my wife, my kids, my grandchildren. Think about it like Bill's. How few people of stature really ask questions about you. But that's different."
Bernstein: "One thing they don't come off smarter than Bill. That's genius level."
Robinson: "He's incredibly generous and wickedly smart. Before I went to air the Australian Open, he gave me this theme on the history of Australia and how it was founded. He had read."
Bernstein: "We were doing a Utah-BYU game once and I couldn't have dinner with him because of a scheduling problem. So I hooked him up with [BYU athletic director] Tom Holmo. Later, Tom called me and said , 'Now I understand the method of his madness.' Clearly, Bill pops her up with questions about Provo, about BYU, about the school library. She has a strong appetite for learning."
Pasch: "He prepares for the broadcast like it's an infomercial for school or the city. He has all these notes, but he doesn't know how it will go."
Robinson: "He doesn't get bogged down in preparing for the tactical part of the game. After the first four minutes, he'll say, 'They have to stop this guy from doing that.' Maybe it's John Wooden's influence, because he doesn't overthink it.
Pasch: "My preparation is like any announcer, but then you go on air with him and it's free for everyone. Maybe that's how he used to play. You prepare and get ready, but Once it starts, you don't know which direction the game will go. Lionel Hollins (Walton's former teammate in the NBA) once told me that the broadcast is like Bill's back in the locker room. Me or So I'm the opponent or the teammate. Broadcasting to him is like he's still playing. And he works himself into a changed state to get ready."
Bernstein: "He's made cookie-cutter broadcasts on the NBA, and he can still do it. But he's a fan. He's celebrating life. And that's true for any broadcast. He's in every broadcast. Throws everything away. Whatever sport he's doing, he sees it as, 'This is the place to be tonight.'"
Robinson: “After every game, people wait to pose and shake hands. Bill tells them to wait so that he can pack his things. Then he talks and poses with everyone. ,
Bernstein: "I've seen him give his email. I've seen him give my phone number. And I guarantee he'll get back to everyone."
Robinson: "We were in Arizona, and here's a UCLA guy, and Arizona fans come up to him. And what do you know: three-quarters of the people who do it are 30 years old and younger — the young people who put them in. Haven't seen him play, but know him as a TV personality, because he catches you."