Bengals radio voice Dan Hoard, who leads the NFL in nuggets and nice, received the Marty Glickman Award on the campus of Syracuse University Wednesday night.
Which is a little bit like a football coach journeying to Oxford, Ohio to get something like the Paul Brown Award. If Miami University is the "Cradle of Coaches," then Syracuse is the "Crib of Calls," when it comes to the giants of sports broadcasting.
"Look at the winners," says Hoard, whose training- camp dry humor can stretch from Letterman-esque to "The Simpsons," a show on which his own character once appeared.
"(Bob) Costas. (Mike) Tirico. Ian Eagle. (Sean) McDonough. Marv Albert. It's the classic case of 'Why is this name on this list?"'
Actually, Dave Lapham, his match-made-in-heaven partner in the Bengals booth these last 14 seasons, says it's a classic case of why isn't the name on the list? If all politics is local, so is sports.
"You look at what Dan has done on a local basis and it's tremendous," says Lapham, maybe the only sports announcer alive who went to Syracuse but not its TV and radio school. "They should expand their horizons in that regard. There should be a place for people who say, 'I'm good where I am and I'm going to stay and not chase the national whatever.' That doesn't mean they're not excellent and deserving. And that's what Dan is.
"On any good team, there has to be a high level of trust. I trust Dan Hoard with my life."
So do Bengals fans, who find out every week why Hoard received The Glickman. He has combined the familiar, reliable voice of a favorite uncle with the enthusiasm of a frat party to provide easy listening for Bengaldom from the A.J. Green draft to the Joe Burrow clinic in Los Angeles last Sunday night.
Network crisp but descriptive. National smooth but eloquent.
Team that with Lapham's effusive emotion for the game and pinpoint analysis, and you get sizzling chemistry that produces bobble-heads and T-Shirts with their names and images.
"It's easy," Lapham says. "I feel like I'm doing games with one of the guys I grew up with and our common interest is sports.
"We can finish each other's sentences."
Which is exactly how "Coffin Nails," became enough of a thing with the fans that both Cincy Bobs and Cincy Shirts have memorialized it.
"It was that first year doing the Bengals," Hoard says of the 2011 playoff run with rookies A.J. Green and Andy Dalton. "One of those early wins, I was trying to come up with something creative. When they definitely had the win, I went "Coffin nails!" And Lap came in almost immediately right after me and said, "Bam. Bam. Bam.' It was pretty organic. I went back and listened to it later and I thought, "Hmmm, maybe we can use this.' Used it ever since."
Hoard's career is celebrated on a night McDonough presents his dear friend with remarks he can't quite finish writing because he knows his voice will catch like Ja'Marr Chase. McDonough knows because when he got The Glickman in 2016, Hoard was one of his presenters. The only ones who vote on The Glickman are the ones who have one and the only ones who get it went to the 'Cuse.
"It's about excellence in sports broadcasting, and it's about mentorship and leadership, and Dan embodies both of those things," McDonough says of The Glickman. "He's a Hall of Fame broadcaster. He's become a legend there in your part of the country, and he's also a great person. I mean, do you know anybody who doesn't like Dan?"
"There are people who are going to talk about the impact that Dan's had on their life and their career. And, part of mentorship is just showing, giving an example. How to conduct yourself, how to go about your business, how to be a professional and treat people well."
Hoard continues to be "flabbergasted," by news of The Glickman even though he found out about it last month. He's the only one. Especially the army he has somehow found time to mentor while negotiating a Hall-of-Fame career calling University of Cincinnati football and basketball games, as well as the Bengals.
Hoard can tick off the young people he's met along the way (interns, helpers, or recent grads looking for their work to be critiqued), like the stats from Sunday night's Bengals game in Los Angeles.
Anthony Calhoun, a fixture in Indianapolis sports television. Dave Benz, who became a popular play-by-play NBA voice with the Timberwolves. And, of course, Tircio, who has called everything but presidential elections.
At Syracuse's Newhouse School back in the day, the sophomores were assigned freshmen to help write scripts and mentor. In the fall of 1981, McDonough, the sophomore, got Hoard. The next fall, Hoard got Tirico. That's left field at Fenway Park. From Ted Williams to Yaz to Jim Rice. Glickmans all.
"Mike often credits me for helping him get his start at Syracuse and that's kind of him," says Hoard of 40 long years ago when he showed Tirico how to splice tape. "But realistically, I had nothing to do with his rise to stardom. A supernova. One of the best ever."
Tirico disputes that, as recently as his Bengals.com appearance last week on Hoard's weekly breakdown of the upcoming game.
And then there's Matt Parks, the current voice of Syracuse football and basketball. Parks graduated from Syracuse in 1997, a dozen years after Hoard, and he interned for him the three summers before that at Syracuse's WTVH, a TV station where Hoard was the sports anchor.
Even back then, Hoard was the hardest-working man in show business. Not to mention the International League. After Hoard got done with the 6 p.m. Sports and got the 11 ready to go, he headed over to the ballpark to call Syracuse Chiefs baseball. He'd get there about the second inning and Parks would have his scorecard filled in.
(For one season in Syracuse, Ken Levine was Hoard's broadcast partner. Levine later wrote an episode for "The Simpsons," in which there is a minor-league broadcaster named, 'Dan Hoard.')
When Parks wasn't filling in the first inning, he was helping Hoard set up his "I Dared Dan," segments that were a hit in the city. People would write in and challenge Hoard to all sorts of athletic feats.
"He'd go to a nursing home and play old ladies in ping pong," Parks says. "And they'd get an 'I Dared Dan T-Shirt.'"
Last month, Parks invited Hoard to Zoom the senior level sports broadcasting course he teaches at Newhouse. That's when Hoard found out he got The Glickman.
He thought it strange that faces belonging to McDonough and Tirico and Eagle and Beth Mowins, the first woman to call play-by-play of a network NBA game, were appearing on his screen. All Glickman winners telling him he was next.
"I've learned more from him than any one other individual," Parks says. "Work ethic is what a lot of people would say automatically That extra little bit, that extra hustle, the extra nugget that you could dig up that the other person wouldn't.
"He's the most creative person I've been around …He's nationally known for serving his local audience. He's known throughout the industry as just an incredibly creative connector with his local people and audience … He's an incredible storyteller, so the fans of the Bengals and Bearcats get to know the players personally."
Ah, The Nugget. Defined as an obscure but riveting fact no one else has dug out of the recesses of homework. You can find them in the weekly "Fun Facts," segment he does with a Bengal.
(Such as rookie defensive tackle Kris Jenkins Jr., singing solo "Great Is Your Mercy," in his high school choir. Jenkins gave Hoard a tip where to find a performance on sound cloud, and, of course, Hoard hunted it down and used it to get out of his most recent Bengals Booth Podcast. )
And remember, we're in the time of year UC football Is finishing, basketball is starting, and the Bengals are prepping for a bye. This week as Hoard worked in the Bengals press room grabbing loose ends, a Kansas State football press released fluttered on his laptop. He heads to Manhattan with the Bearcats for Saturday's game.
Bengals fans won't be surprised with the advice Hoard gave Parks' class. They hear it every Sunday. Parks recalls something like, "I don't describe every blade of grass."
"But he is trying to enhance people's enjoyment of the game," Parks says.
Hoard on advice: "Same as it's always been. Get as much hands on experience as you possibly can. Broadcasting cannot be taught in the classroom. There are things you can learn in the classroom, particularly in writing. But the act of going on the air and calling the game is something you have to do over and over again to get good at it and develop your own sense of style."
Hoard's style is steeped in the finest Syracuse tradition that began when the great SU athlete Marty Glickman was lured to broadcast high school football games at the end of his All-American football career with the Orange, long after he was an 18-year-old Olympic sprinter on the American team in the 1936 Games.
He turned into an Olympian announcer who birthed a dynasty. As Glickman became the voice of the New York Knicks and the fledgling NBA, a Knicks ballboy watched and Glickman took Marv Albert under his wing.
"This whole thing at Newhouse started because Marv Albert wanted to be Marty Glickman," McDonough says. "Dick Stockton wanted to be Marty Glickman and Marv Albert. Bob Costas wanted to be Marty Glickman and Marv Albert and I wanted to be Dick Stockton and Marv Albert and Bob Costas and so did Mike."
And so did Hoard and he did it, McDonough says, by showing the kids how to do it. There were stints at TV stations in Syracuse and Cincinnati. He was the voice of the Syracuse Chiefs and the Pawtucket Red Sox. He worked UC basketball on TV while anchoring Fox 19 Sports.
All the while, he and his wife Peg Rusconi, a popular Boston TV reporter, had a commuter marriage. That all changed when the Bengals called. Rusconi left WBZ amid a flurry of headlines extolling her 14-year career, and they raised their son Sam in Cincinnati.
Sam Hoard is now a freshman at the University of Colorado, but a vestige of his childhood can still be seen at his dad's work cubicle in the Bengals pressroom. There's a poster from a race for classroom president from grade school crafted by Dan: "Don't be Bored, Vote for Hoard."
"It wasn't like he walked out of Syracuse University and became the voice of the University of Cincinnati and the voice of the Bengals," McDonough says. "There were well over 1,000 minor-league baseball games in there. There was local sports anchoring and reporting. There were times when he and Peg weren't even living in the same city.
"I think it's instructive to the students who are there and who are going to watch him receive the award. Don't get frustrated. It's not easy to get to where Dan is. So I think he's a great study in perseverance. It wasn't a straight line. I'm just so happy not only for him getting the award, but just for his life. He's got a wonderful life."
Wonderful enough that he'll give a chunk of it away to a voice on the way up. Just like Costas did for him. Let the storyteller tell it.
"About the time I was getting out of Syracuse, Costas put up an ad in Newhouse. He was looking for a personnel assistant for his syndicated radio show. Me and I'm sure everybody else applied. I applied because it was a great job, but I also wanted to get a chance to meet Bob Costas. I sent everything. Tapes. Clips. Resume. I got an interview, and this is what really impressed me.
"He had done his homework on me. Knew everything about me. He asked me what I wanted to be doing in 20 years. I said announcing for a major-league baseball team. He said I was a top candidate, but advised me not to take it if offered because he knew I was announcing the Chiefs games and that was a better track. I took his advice, but now I had Bob Costas' home phone number in St. Louis, and he told me to call him any time if I had questions about the business. Bob Freaking Costas. I called him at times and we would have some long conversations. Never blew me off. If a guy like Bob Costas can do something like that for a schlepp like me, the least I can do is pay it forward."
Hoard lost touch with Costas down through the years. Maybe even before cell phones. But the night before Hoard called Super Bowl LVI two years ago, a text flashed across his phone congratulating him on reaching this moment and wishing him luck the next day.
"Bob Freaking Costas," Hoard says.
Bam. Bam. Bam.
