Seattle Sportsnet

Last year at this time, Husky Men’s Basketball games were being called on FSN by play-by-play man Brian Davis and color analyst Bob Weiss, former coach of your Seattle Supersonics. This year, things have changed. Instead of the overzealous, overenergized Davis, fans are treated to the baritone melody of ex-Sonics announcer Kevin Calabro. Rather than the cliche one-liners and lack of insight provided by Weiss, local prep basketball guru Francis Williams handles the commentary.

Calabro, a stalwart on the Seattle sports scene for two decades now, is becoming as iconic as his predecessor with the Sonics, Bob Blackburn. Before the Sonics’ departure to Oklahoma, Calabro was being coveted by all the major NBA broadcast studios. TNT, ESPN/ABC, and the NBA Network all wanted a piece of The Voice. True to his Seattle roots, however, Calabro took a major pay cut to remain at home in the Northwest and offer his services to the local broadcast outlets. When he isn’t calling play-by-play for the Dawgs, he’s filling in on Mariners broadcasts. And come 2009, Kevin Calabro will be the voice of the new Seattle Sounders. Imagine that, a broadcasting superstar announcing soccer, no less.

Williams, a relative newbie into broadcasting, is no slouch himself. For someone with no big-game announcing experience, Williams has handled the transition with relative ease. With an encyclopedic knowledge of high school basketball, Williams provides background knowledge on players that no commentator can compete with. He’s been a source for information on anything and everything prep basketball, and has been a frequent guest star in print and on the radio. His leap to the broadcast booth has been stabilized by the presence of Calabro, and the best of Francis Williams is arguably yet to come.

The team of Calabro and Williams brings back memories of the Calabro-Marques Johnson tandem of Sonics years gone by. Calabro and Johnson were the Batman and Robin of basketball broadcasting, seemingly filling every gap with a knowledgable, descriptive portrayal of all the action in front of them. The average listener could easily follow along, and the more enthusiastic fan could walk away from a broadcast having learned something new.

The upgrade from the announcing regime of old is remarkable. Weiss, a jokester-gone-wrong, was naive when it came to the college game. Fans quickly got sick of listening to him compare everything he saw to the NBA. Davis, like a little kid on crack, had the tendency to overplay even the smallest of details, forcing the blood pressure levels of fans to remain high all game long and turning a relaxing experience into more of a chore. Without a doubt, most local sports fans had more fun mocking the FSN crews of old rather than listening to them.

Don’t get me wrong, FSN is by no means a complete package yet. Their studio analysis is Jayvee-caliber, and they have tons of work to do on national broadcasts. But for basketball, at least, the local affiliate of the ESPN wannabe has rolled out the red carpet and pulled out all the stops to produce a decent broadcast. Heck, Lenny Wilkens of all people provides insight from time-to-time. FSN may not be error-free yet, but in just one year they’ve done great things to step up their game. And for Husky fans, at least, that’s saying something.

ESPN NCAA basketball correspondent Andy Katz has picked the Husky Men’s Basketball team as “most disappointing” in the Pac-10 so far this season. Whether you agree or disagree with Katz, the fact of the matter is he’s an idiot, so not to worry.

Andy Katz is one of those guys that sounds really intellectual when he speaks, simply because of the way he is talking. Lots of great speakers possess this skill, and Andy Katz is no different. Because most people watch television in a complete stupor, people like Katz can come across as smart if you aren’t on your toes. Of course, once you start breaking down the actual words coming out of their mouths, you realize they aren’t making any sense at all.

In Katz’s Pac-10 review, he also labeled California as his “mystery team.” You know why Cal is his mystery team? Because Andy Katz doesn’t know anything about Cal. Cal is only a mystery because Andy Katz reviewed nine of the ten Pac-10 teams and then got too lazy to Google “Cal.” You know what else is a “mystery” to Katz? Investigative research.

Here’s the thing about Katz (and I realize that at this point I’m no longer speaking to my article title, but whatever, it’s the day after Christmas, what are you gonna do right?). Katz is a lemming. He’s a lemming. And what I mean by that is, he’s the type of guy that goes along with what everyone else is saying and then takes those ideas and pretends to make them his own. His “best player” and “top performer” in the Pac is Arizona State’s James Harden. That’s like saying that the sky is blue or Clay Aiken is gay. Come on, dude, tell us something we don’t know. Harden has been tearing it up since last season, and this year he’s a consensus first-team All-Pac-10. Take a look at this quote: “With Harden on the court, the Sun Devils have a real shot to compete for the league title.” Really? You don’t say. With Michael Jordan on the court, the Chicago Bulls have a real shot at winning an NBA title. With Sandy Koufax on the mound, the Los Angeles Dodgers have a real shot at winning this game. You see the trend.

Back during the 2003-2004 season, Katz was a UW hater. He hated on the Huskies because he thought we weren’t good enough to go to the NCAA tournament. But as soon as the Dawgs made the tourney, Katz was a Husky fan. He loved the Huskies. He always loved the Huskies. The Huskies were his pick. Right. And now that we’re down again, the Huskies are “disappointing.” Hey smart guy, the Huskies were disappointing two years ago. Last year we expected them to be down. This year, the bar is set so freaking low that we consider our one-point victory over Portland State to be a major step forward. The only person disappointed is you, and again, that’s because you’re an idiot.

The problem with guys like Andy Katz is that people keep employing them, and then spreading them way too thin across a body of work they know little about. Katz doesn’t know Pac-10 college basketball. Katz doesn’t know any conference of college basketball that well because he’s responsible for knowing something about all of them. He’s the Willie Bloomquist of college basketball reporting. He can do everything in average fashion, but nothing very well. Katz knows a little bit about all the conferences, but nothing exceptional about any of them. In the eyes of most fans, that makes him a bonehead. Is it entirely his fault? No. ESPN has put him in this position. Does it really matter? No, because “By Andy Katz” still appears at the top of each of his articles and his face still appears on each of his TV segments, and 90% of what he spews is crap.

Let me tell you something right now. Here at Seattle Sportsnet, you’ll never get crap. We hate crap. We’re anti-crap. We don’t know jack about curling, horse racing, the Toledo Mudhens, or hockey, and we’ll never pretend that we do just to please our readership. No way, we respect the fans out there and we respect the mutual knowledge we can share with you. The problem is, too many guys out there on ESPN, Fox Sports, and all those other media outlets are put into a position where they have to pretend for you, like puppets. They fake knowledge just so some dumb-dumb will start following what they have to say. That’s not fair to you, an intelligent human being with your own opinions on sports. Let me clarify something. I’m not mad at guys like Andy Katz because they rip on the Huskies or any of our other sports teams. I can respect their opinions if those opinions are genuine and actually have some thought behind them. But when they produce generic filler with no power behind their words and a first grader’s understanding on the subject matter, it’s an insult to you, me, and anyone else who digests their work. I’m sick of it, and it needs to stop. Andy Katz’s of the world, I’m calling you out.