Perry-area high school and college sports have been a large part of the Perry scene for well more than 100 years. This past Tuesday, sportscaster extraordinaire Shawn Kenney of Perry stopped by the noon luncheon meeting of the Perry Kiwanis to discuss his roles as play-by-play announcer with local radio and the ESPN television network.
Kenney, the ever present city of Perry cheerleader, started out his presentation commenting on the recent Perry Area Chamber of Commerce Dinner held April 10. He congratulated Andrea Tunink on receiving the Jack Finneseth Memorial Volunteer of the Year Award and Ben Franklin owners Jan and Jay Pattee on receiving the Spirit of Perry Business of the Year Award.
Kenney discussed how radio has changed during his career, with recent years seeing an ever-increasing online presence with the rise of social media. He said new generations of listeners listen online and like to see written commentary on the stories presented on the air.
He also stated that when younger listeners do listen to the radio, they are more inclined to listen to FM. Kenney commented that the younger generation of listeners grew up listening to FM radio. He stated that AM radio is a foreign concept to them.
Kenney has covered local high school sports on local radio for over 20 years. He stated that the current track, golf and soccer seasons are a down time for radio in terms of sports broadcasting. Although outcomes and scores are shared with listeners, track and golf would be very difficult to broadcast.
Kenney stated that he does not usually cover regular-season soccer, but some sponsors have reached out to him to broadcast some of the area matches. He has covered state playoff and state games the past few seasons, and Kenney said Jeremy Crawford has been very helpful in terms of doing play-by-play soccer.
As the end of May comes ever closer, Kenney said he will be broadcasting 40 Perry High School softball and baseball games. He said all of this will be packed into six weeks.
Along with his local work, for a decade Kenney also has been reaching a global audience by working as a play-by-play announcer for ESPN sports. He got his start while working with Jim Gibbons covering NCAA Wrestling on the then ESPN 360. ESPN took notice of his talent and started to offer him more and more sports broadcasting events.
This past season he did 23 college football games for ESPN and several women’s and men’s college basketball games. This year ESPN started to cover college bowl games, which Kenney was able to broadcast.
He also has broadcast college tennis, ACC track, college wrestling and Ultimate, which is a game where you use a Frisbee called a disc. Frisbee is a copyrighted name.
The main basketball conference that he covers is the Mountain West Conference.
Kenney stated that when they first talked with him about Ultimate, he thought that it was Ultimate Fighting.
Kenney has broadcast ACC and NCAA wrestling on ESPN for nearly a decade. This season ESPN started to cover college dual wrestling meets.
Kenney said one of the best wrestling meets that he covered this season was a dual between Michigan and Ohio State of the Big Ten Conference. During the heavyweight match, Michigan upset the highly rated Ohio State Wrestler.
Kenney covered much of the ACC wrestling championships this past season and several events on the NCAA wrestling championships. Kenney worked the NCCAA matches with Jim Gibbons.
Kenney stated that he and Gibbons covered the Medal and Quarterfinal rounds along with Off the Mat for the NCAA championships.
Kenney also was able to cover the World Cup Wrestling on NBC television. This was a two-day event the U.S. ended up winning. Kenney stated that the hardest part of this coverage was trying to pronounce all of the names of the wrestlers from all over the world. Names were spelled out phonetically, and Kenney said these were hard to memorize. He said it was one of the hardest things that he has ever had to do in terms of broadcasting.
Kenney may have a chance in August to go to Russia to cover wrestling there.
In terms of football coverage, Kenney stated that it takes 30 to 35 hours a week to prepare for a college football game. He says that he memorizes the players two deep. He memorizes up to four deep on receivers and secondary.
Kenney said he starts working on memorizing players and their numbers on Sunday. He said you must immediately be able to say the player’s name once you see their number. He said if this is not immediate, the broadcast will not come off well. He receives copies of the previous week’s games and watches them, breaking down plays, formations and anything else important to the game.
Kenney uses a large sheet of paper which has all of the players and their numbers. He writes notes about each player. This could include highlights, personal information and nearly anything else. Kenney Googles each player to find out all that he can about a player.
Kenney flies out on Friday mornings and may need to drive from the airport to the school.
There is a two-hour meeting with the ESPN production crew to go over the upcoming broadcast and story ideas.
Kenney then meets with the coaches and three or four of the team players on Fridays. Kenney said he is never scheduled for midwest games and usually ends up out east. The east coast announcers come to the midwest.
Kenney said he asks each coach 10 questions that he prepares ahead of time. He makes sure that they cannot be answered with just a yes or no. Kenney stressed that coaches can be reluctant to answer questions for the media. He said coaches have hundreds of reporters trying to contact them. Unfortunately, many of them are trying to find something negative to report about a team.
Kenney stated that if the coaches see that you are prepared, they will give you better answers.
Kenney commented that at a recent Perry school job fair, he stressed to the kids the importance of face-to-face communication. Kenney stated that with social media, the art of face-to-face communication has been lost.
Kenney wants to make the viewer believe that he is an expert on the teams and best buddies with all of the players.
Kenney has also worked with Olympic Gold Medalist Dan O’Brien on track broadcasts and John McEnroe on tennis broadcasts.
Some goals of Kenney’s is to broadcast an Iowa football game. His bucket list includes broadcasting an Oakland Raiders NFL game.
Kenney was welcomed by Perry Kiwanis 21-year member and club secretary Doug Wood.
You can watch Kenney’s Kiwanis presentation on Pegasus Cable Channel 12.
