National Sports Journalism Center

The phrase came, as many of the best ones do, without much thought and in the heat of the moment.

But as play-by-play announcer Ted Robinson watched American speed skater Apolo Ohno glide past an unexpected crash among South Korean skaters to take a silver medal Saturday, his exuberance was infectious and immediate:

“Just in case you’ve missed this sport in the last four years, America, welcome back!” Robinson announced, signaling his own return to calling speed skating competitions at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver; a job he now knows pretty well.

“It was completely, utterly spontaneous,” he said, calling from Canada Monday. “I had no idea that ending was afoot, but that’s what we’re always taught; To be yourself, react and covey your reactions and emotions…People know you’re going to be excited when an American athlete does well. (But) it’s important for us to be as excited when an athlete for another country does well, too.”

Calling play-by-play for the so-called “short track” speed skating competitions for NBC, Robinson is working his seventh Olympic games, contributing to a broadcast that generally has drawn high marks from critics while veering from the thrill of Ohno’s victory to the death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili during a practice run.

It’s a schedule even Robinson called “a little calmer” than typical Olympics grind; working on events several days apart until the games are done. And with Ohno among the most recognizable competitors – thank you, Dancing with the Stars! – much of Robinson’s work is going to air on the big stage of NBC’s prime-time telecast.

“Without doubt, the greatest growth I’ve had as a broadcaster has been because of the Olympics,” said Robinson, who has served as prime time host for the USA Network’s U.S. Open coverage and called Major League Baseball games for 22 years.

“It really started with my first games in Nagano, (Japan), which I worked for CBS. I did four different sports. I had to do the snowboard giant slalom on 12 hours notice…live on CBS primetime. The result of all that, is you conquer the fear of the unknown. If you live your life in the sports we know so well, you get in the comfort zone. But at The Olympics — I’ve been thrown into these sports I have no background in and it made me better than any other broadcast experience I’ve had.”

Here’s a quick look at an announcer’s-eye-view of NBC’s ongoing Winter Olympics coverage through a heavily edited Q&A with Robinson, who still can’t believe he’s at an event where he might be working out on the treadmill and Tom Brokaw or Al Michaels takes a spot to his side.

Deggans: With a day’s coverage under your belt, how do you feel about the performance?

Robinson: “The winter games are always a little calmer for most people – still frantic, but calmer than the summer games. Maybe the proper word is these are the humane games. In Beijing we had the polar opposite – an incredibly daunting workload for people.”

“Short track is the odd Olympic sport, where we have three days from the first day and the second day of competition. That really helps the skaters — they get an incredible amount of recovery time between competitions – and for us, it actually gives us time to prepare our homework.”

Deggans: How odd is it to see Apolo Ohno emerge as a star landing on the cover of TV Guide and the cast of Dancing with the Stars?

Robinson: “In Salt Lake City, I remember it was entirely an introductory process. We spent two weeks trying to tell the story of who this 19-year-old is. By the time we got to the Torino games, it was more of a re-introduction of who Apolo was. Then he wins a gold in his final race, and he goes on Dancing with the Stars — far and away the biggest thing he’s ever done. Now, even though the sport goes away, Apolo doesn’t. We’ve gone from Apolo being the 19-year-old we had to introduce, to the next best American (J.R. Celski) is a 19-year-old who took up the short track because he saw Apolo. That’s when you know that there’s been an evolution in the sport.”

Deggans: I noticed some critics faulted NBC for showing footage of the luge crash which killed Nodar Kumaritashvili, and the network has said they will resist showing it in the future. But if NBC hadn’t shown it, wouldn’t the network have been accused of covering it up?

Robinson: “Well, something like the luge crash, or any significant event, is going to be covered by NBC News – Tom Brokaw is here and Brian Williams and Matt Lauer. I did not see NBC showing the footage; I saw it on some places online. You know, you show it with the graphic warning – and that way the viewer has the ability to turn away if they wanted. Once everybody heard about it, every one went to their laptops to try to and see what happened. But I’m certain nobody exploited it or showed it gratuitously.”

Deggans: What about the constant criticisms that broadcasters root too much for the American athletes – who, if they do well, will bring in more viewers?

Robinson: “We’ve had a lot of practice at this – its never ‘we,’ or ‘us’ or ‘them.’ It’s no different than broadcasting for a (baseball) team. Through your inflection and tone, people know you’re going to be excited when an American athlete does well. But it’s important for us to be as excited when an athlete for another country does well, too.”

Deggans: What if the Americans aren’t particularly good at the sport you’re covering?

Robinson: “I can only speak for myself – I always make sure I identify the American athletes that are performing. They’ve got school friends and cousins and family watching. Every American athlete should get that due. To place their chances in the proper perspective, that should also happen. If there’s not much chance they can do well, you should place that in perspective. I personally don’t feel comfortable saying ‘My god they’re not very good, they have no chance.’ That might be, in a cold callous way, the truth. But I don’t want to say it.”

Deggans: The first two days of coverage drew some of the largest TV audiences the Winter Olympics have seen since 1994. Any idea why?

Robinson: “The Olympics still matter. My second Olympic games was in Sydney (Australia), my first for NBC. I watched these professional baseball players — Tommy Lasorda, who had won a World Series as a manager – these grizzled professional baseball players crying as the put the medal around their necks. You realize; we have a bit more nationalism. There’s still an intense pride in seeing our athletes perform. Also, the X Games has broadened people’s horizons. We also know a little bit more about these sports — snowboarding is in the Olympics – and we’re tolerant of watching them.”

Deggans: One analyst wondered if social media sites like Twitter and Facebook weren’t boosting TV ratings – when people tweet about what they’re watching on TV, more people tune in to watch.

Robinson: “That’s the great strength of Twitter – it’s word of mouth gone global. You can put it in your PDA and have that word travel the globe in seconds. That makes sense. That would be a good thing. The broadcast media is trying to figure out how to survive and thrive, so that’s a great thought. When I saw J.R. Celski, I asked him yesterday ‘Did your Facebook page blow up (after the bronze medal). He said, ‘I don’t do Facebook, I’m just on Twitter.’ So we’ve already gotten to the point where Facebook is old school.”

Deggans: Speaking of old school, that seems to be your approach to play-by-play. Fair?

Robinson: “You learn how to communicate and convey; I’m not the expert, the (analyst) next to me, who participated in the sport, is the expert. I did 22 years of baseball – after 3,000 baseball games, you start to think you know about it. And if you’re not careful, you can start talking like you know the games when you have somebody next to you who played the game for 15 years. You are there to set the stage and tell the story and track the results – and the analyst is there to explain the sport. As the saying goes, My job is to say ‘what’ and the analyst is to say ‘why.’”

Eric Deggans is TV and Media Critic for the St. Petersburg Times and a 1990 graduate of the Indiana University School of Journalism. His work has also appeared in the Washington Post, Village Voice, VIBE magazine, Chicago Tribune, Detroit Free Press, Chicago Sun-Times and many other publications. He also writes a blog on media, The Feed, at www.blogs.tampabay.com/media.