Vocalzone in the Vocal Zone By Matthew C Wallace My hand waving moment… Before I say diddlysquat, I am not a doctor, pharmacist or a medical practitioner. I am a public speaker and my son, a baritone. The experiences and opinions expressed here are only my own and my son’s. If you even have the…
How To Make Roster Sheets – Easy! By Matthew C Wallace From Blanks to Names… There is nothing an announcer needs more than a clean, easy-to-read Roster Sheet for a contest of any kind. Most announcers only announce college or high school and good roster sheets are hard to come by. Truth is…quick facts and…
Sometimes I Feel Like I’m Wearing Stripes By Matthew C Wallace I have announced multitudinous games and events in my life and, one thing very clear to me is that I have felt like I’ve always been an unofficial member of the officiating team at sporting events. It’s certainly a funny thing to say considering…
Luck Favors the Prepared By Matthew C Wallace The unexpected always happens…period. If I did not prepare offsite for each and every event and game, I would be doomed. Through mistakes I’ve made and observed, PA Announcing cannot be done professionally on the fly. Not all of it anyway. That’s my opinion after over a thousand…
Lost In Translation By Matthew C Wallace Ever feel like you need a Masters in American Sign Language (ASL) in order to interpret the officials’ hand signals? I do…all the time. Invariably, every announcer finds themselves in a game of any field sport whereby and for whatever reason, the officiating crew is not rigged with…
Scribble and Speak By Matthew C Wallace Get your forms on, buddy! Specifically, your announcer forms for scoring a game. Really? What’s wrong with just scoring the game in a standard score book? Nothing if it’s all you have to do. Announcers have nothing to do at a game, right? The job is just so easy that…
Music and PA Announcing: Run or Embrace? By Matthew C Wallace “Hey Jim, did I just catch the F-Bomb?” Could it be true? Tens, hundreds and thousands (maybe millions if televised, billions if posted to the web) of eardrums hammer wildly to an expletive slipping in a flash through the fingers of a game crew. …
Names Are Everything By Matthew C Wallace Civilization’s primary identifiers…NAMES: France, Coca-Cola, Sony, Apple, Tom Cruise, Aztecs, Jupiter. Our singular memories are pegged with these unique tags for all things we happen to know in the universe. For me, names seem to land in the 80/20 model of my announcing world. As a PA announcer, I,…
Taking Care of the Voice By Matthew C Wallace Likely the most important article of your announcing life When I was younger (not going into which decade THAT might be), I played guitar professionally. I was in bands, composed songs and played in popular Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles venues. My guitars lived in a…
Mistakes By Matthew C Wallace Everyone Makes Them… I have never announced any event or game 100% perfectly. Never. Regardless, I expect 100% perfection. Always. If expect anything else, I will get even less than that. It is said that you are your #1 critic. In my case, no one scorns me harder than me. If I…