I wish that Wendy Gebauer Palladino will do play by play of women's soccer . Do you think that she should start doing that?
Since she is a Chapel Hill resident I am certainly biased in her favor. She's better than AD or Cox, in my opinion.
Why would you both living in Chapel Hill make you biased in her favor. Does the home town of an announcer make everyone in that town better? Seriously? Does that make you glad that her husband Bill is assistant coach of the WNT? Because he's from Chapel Hill? Bill and Wendy are both very nice people. Being from Durham, and travelling to a bunch of WNT games, I have found myself on the same plane with them numerous times. I think Bill is a fine coach based on his results with both UNC and the national team. I think Wendy is a fine commentator based on the games I've heard her call. Not on where she's from, nor the fact that I've met her.
Wendy seems like a lovely person, but her color commentary drives me crazy. it's *SO* biased it's just hard to handle. When JP has to provide bias balance, you know something is wrong. And someone please alert Wendy that every time a team gets back defensively and organizes, that is not a bunker. I don't think I have a game on tape (over 300) that she has commentated on in the past 4 years where she has not indicated the other team was bunkering. Maybe Germany v US 03 (did she do that game). Very few teams bunker against the US now. Maybe Nigeria, Ghana, and Mexico. But other than that, teams commit strong numbers forward against us. Thus, no bunker.
Wendy is a stock broker (wich Wachovia Securities) who manages the investments of several USWNT members, Mia and Lilly in particular. There is NO WAY Wendy will ever criticize her clients on the air. It is a blatant conflict of interest, but is one that ESPN does NOT care about.
Well.. I guess sportscasting isn't journalism. But it would be nice to get a little more neutral color commentator once in a while. Spending so much time watching foreign men's leagues really spoils you. You get the positive as well as the negative aspects of the game. Euro04 was another great example of this, with a panel of players sitting around basically zinging the teams at half time. Or praising them if they'd done well.
blah, blah, blah. It just doesn't matter, and it ain't that big of a deal Most TV and Radio team sports broadcasters are hired by the teams they cover. "conflict of interest" is the nature of the game. Heck, The Revs TV color commentator is also their director of media relations.
Palladino is awful. If I hear "numbers up" again I think I'll be driven to drink. Get Shannon Higgins Cirovski to do color. If you want real play by play, I could do it better than any of them. Hey, I once fooled Univision folks into thinking I was Tony Tirado!
The last time I watch Shannon do a broadcast for more than 15 minutes (the 2001 opener for the Washington Freedom in San Diego with Allen Hopkins), she was far from smooth, as she repeatedly stuttered with lots of "uhs" between her thoughts. She did improve later in the 2001 season, but she was replaced by WUSA officials with Lori Walker in 2002. In any case, the 1999 generation has retired or is about to retire and will be available for broadcasting work. Lorrie Fair is one who has played the political game in a savvy enough way to land a TV gig with MLS/SUM. The gig that Fair has now with MLS/SUM was one that was Julie Foudy's to lose. Foudy managed to blow the gig by p----- o-- the US Soccer establishment. The Tisha Venturini experiment failed miserably. By the time the producers figured out that Tisha had to be kept on a very short leash because of her inexperience, the damage to Tisha as a broadcaster at the national level was done. (The producers did learn from the Tisha disaster by keeping Lorrie Fair on a very short leash. Lorrie's segments are tightly scripted, with questions supplied by the producers and few if any follow-up questions.) Michelle Akers was the one the US Soccer establishment wanted for the TV gig (as a politically correct choice), but her health would not allow her to perform. Wendy was brought back as an emergency replacement for Michelle and has stuck around. At one time, Foudy was penciled in by ESPN as Ty Keough's heir apparent. That gig of course now belongs to Marcelo Balboa after MLS/SUM decided it didn't want anything more to do with Tommy Smyth.
Akers was somewhat tentative in her delivery and she definitely lacked energy at times because of her health.
So I guess you enjoyed her comment during the last friendly, when reminiscing about the crowd's response right after Chastain's PK, "You could hardly see the field through all the grafitti!"
Nice little piece on Akers in this week's SI. Throw in the article on Greece winning Euro2004 and the usualy mention in "What to Watch" and I really gotta wonder what all these folks calling for an SI boycott are smoking?
I don't know if Wendy's "conflict of interest" is that important. But has anyone ever noticed that NO ONE covers USWNT without a "conflict of interest?" I mean Harry Caray was a homer, but there were two newspapers and a national media to balance the guy out. How different would this team look if there was really independant media coverage (beyond slapping an AP wire tag on USSF press releases)?
no. she tried though. God bless her. It was a bit awkward. She obviously knows her sh1t but she struggled in the transition between her knowledge and the mic.