Here is an article I read yesterday.
MEDIA: NBC's Sunderland does his job in wake of tragedyBy Tom Hoffarth, media columnist
Article Last Updated: 08/15/2008 01:34:07 PM PDT
On the first day of competition at the Beijing Olympics last Saturday, Paul Sunderland was having a bite to eat at the International Broadcast Center, where all those working on the NBC crews gather at one point or another each day.
An executive producer approached him and Kevin Barnett, his partner on volleyball telecasts, and told him the news: The in-laws of U.S. men's coach Hugh McCutcheon were just attacked by someone with a knife at a local tourist attraction. Todd Bachman, the father of McCutcheon's wife, former UCLA standout and 2004 U.S. women's volleyball team member Elisabeth, had been killed, and Barbara Bachman was in emergency surgery.
"The randomness and sheer horror of the tragedy ... you just can't believe it," Sunderland recalled Thursday morning by phone before he and Barnett were about to call three matches that day. "At that point, the details were sketchy. All we could do was try to find out as much as possible and do our job."
As Michael Phelps continues to be the Beijing "feel-good" story of the NBC telecast, the pall still hanging over both the U.S. men's and women's team is one that Sunderland has to try to interpret as he broadcasts at least one of their games each night so far.
McCutcheon has yet to return to the men's team bench, and Sunderland said that while he hasn't had direct contact with him yet, he understands how this will be a day-to-day storyline that plays out as the finals for both men's and women's volleyball stretch into the last two days of competition.
"You can't speculate, nor can you generalize, how this affects the players on either team, because everyone is dealing with this differently," said Sunderland, who has gotten to know McCutcheon quite well on a professional basis over the past several years, and had access to the team's training facility in Orange County before heading to China.
"The U.S. team loses its coach at a time when, coming into the Games, it was given a real chance to win - not that it matters now given the gravity of the latest news - and eight of the players on this U.S. team were teammates of Elisabeth in Athens, so both teams are dramatically affected. At the end of the day, some can put the tragedy aside and play, and others can't.
"I know the women's team has so far not played nearly as well as expected, but is it a result of this? In a team sport, everyone is so reliant on one another. The players are fairly inaccessible, and I've only been able to speak to some of the women's coaching staff. So I really don't know."
A situation like this isn't really in the broadcaster's playbook. The only thing Sunderland can recall that's anything similar in circumstance was back at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, when broadcast partner Chris Marlowe came knocking at his hotel room door one morning at 4:30 a.m. to inform him about the Centennial Park bombing. Sunderland had been preparing for an important beach volleyball match that day with Karch Kiraly and Kent Steffes facing Sinjin Smith and Carl Hinkle, but the focus of everything changed quickly.
"That incident was bad enough," Sunderland said. "I wouldn't want anything to rival this."
Sunderland, the former Lakers play-by-play man who has been a part of NBC's Olympic broadcasting team on both indoor and beach volleyball at Barcelona (1992), Atlanta (1996) and Sydney (2000), plus the anchor for the high-definition feed in 2004 at Athens, was a member of the U.S. '84 gold medal-winning squad, having also been on the '76 and '80 U.S. teams after a stellar career at Loyola Marymount University.
"When I played, I thought I prepared for everything - jet lag, long bus rides, hostile crowds, officiating - but there's no way something like this is even considered," said Sunderland of the attacks, which he addressed at the top of the show when the U.S. men's team faced Bulgaria on Thursday's prime time and will repeat when covering the U.S.-China men's match that airs tonight in prime time. "Hugh is such a wonderful guy, with a wonderful family. It's still just so devastating on so many levels. We just have to take it day by day and see how this unfolds."
More media notes:
www.insidesocal.com/tomhoffarth Comments
Showing posts 1 - 2 of 2
ron montgomery
Los Angeles, CA Reply »
|Report Abuse |#1 Yesterday
another very good column. Thanks Tom.
lou dobbs
Glendale, CA Reply »
|Report Abuse |#2 Yesterday
wish the lakers would bring sunderland back to their telecasts and dump the annoying state the obvious redundantly joel meyers. Or move spero dedes from radio to tv. sunds did a fine job, but of course he was the first to replace the legendary chickie baby and u can't compare to a legend.
