Props to Olympics’ Luge Play-by-Play, From a Former Montana Sports Commentator

I was watching some Olympic coverage on television over the last week or so.

The first event I saw was curling. And I have to say that the play-by-play coverage was pretty good. The announcers were explaining strategy for both sides and what each team needed to do with their remaining stones. Because if you're like me, you've played similar games, but I have never, personally, curled for competition.

I have, however, done my share of play-by-play back in the early days of my radio career. The majority of the games that I did were basketball.

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Montana High School Sports Broadcasting Gets... Interesting

Sometimes when you're calling games in small-town Montana, you're going to get some relatives on the floor at the same time. I recall doing a game at the District 8C tournament in Great Falls in 1987 where one team put two sisters and their cousin out on the floor at the same time. So the call sounded odd. "DeBoo to DeBoo, BACK to DeBoo". You get the idea.

Football play-by-play was a little harder because the game moves so much slower. But at least I knew all the rules of the game and could fill where I needed to.

Luge Commentators at the Olympics Deserve a Medal

So that's why I want to salute the folks on TV who are doing the play-by-play for the luge competition. Because it's as simple of a sport as there is! In case you don't know the rules and objectives, I'll explain them to you: 1. Get on your sled. 2. Get down the track faster than everybody else's sleds. Everything else you'll be talking about is just filler.

But they did it. And they even had a luge expert helping out by saying things like, "No, you can't touch the sides and expect to medal." Riveting.