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GLENDALE, Ariz. (AP) — The deep, rich voice heard from the World Series to the Stanley Cup says this is his last Final Four.
“If you asked someone if they had the opportunity to do one of the things I was lucky enough to do, would you do it?I think the answer would be yes,” Gene Honda said in the box at State Farm Stadium. Smile and say thank you and move on. “
Gen Honda? Public address announcer for . . well, in many places.
If you’ve attended a Chicago White Sox baseball game since 1985, you’ve heard of it. There were about 2,700 opportunities because that’s the number of games he’s worked on, a career so long he’s in his second ballpark on Chicago’s South Side and his 11th manager with the White Sox. This requires the names of many smart and bad lineups. “Especially one aspect of this wonderful book,” he laughs.
Enthusiasts in the stands never hear it, but Honda has a clever laugh. If you’ve been to a Blackhawks hockey game since 2001, you’ve heard it. That’s enough time for 3 Stanley Cup winners, adding up to 2015, that you immediately know. Once you shake Honda’s hand as he’s dressed in a championship ring. I can’t miss it. It looks like it could sink if you jump into a lake with this thing. On one aspect of the ring among all the diamonds is the word HONDA and a friend jokingly asked: When was Gene a sponsor of the ring?Honda was ofendió. no because of what the friend had said, but because he thought it was a wonderful line and had no idea about it first.
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If I’ve been to DePaul’s basketball games, I’ve heard it. Illinois football games, I’ve heard it. The Big Ten basketball tournament, I’ve heard it. The Chicago Marathon, I’ve heard it.
And each and every one of them has made it to the Final Four since 2003.
“It’s fantastic to have done a baseball game on Tuesday and then in 24 hours I go to do a basketball game (All-Star Game) and then two more and then one more and then I go home and I have they gave us two hockey games with a baseball game in between,” he says. “If someone gets bored with that, they’re not doing their homework right. “
Honda, who previously studied engineering, finance and broadcasting at the University of Illinois, is the only AP broadcaster who can say he will play in the World Series, Stanley Cup, Final Four, Frozen Four and Major League All . -All-Star Game. And anything else. It’s very rare that someone in our industry gets the opportunity to say, ‘I was the first,'” he says. “And I was the first to play in that Field of Dreams game in Dyersville, Iowa, when the White Sox received the Yankees. That doesn’t happen in our business.
He’s here at the stadium to paint some pitches for this Final Four. The last one. It’s time to ask yourself which years you remember the most. “You’re never the first,” he replies. There will be two, or probably three, who will stay with me. The first, in 2005, because my Illini made it to the Final Four in St. Petersburg. John’s. Louis and whatever happens this weekend.
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It tells the story of how it all began, in the home of a circle of Japanese-American relatives on Chicago’s North Side. His father was an architect and Gene went to his father one day and told him that he too would like to become an architect. Architect. Sought an opinion. You’re not artistic enough,” the father tells his son. He pleaded with Gene to exercise his public speaking skills. The son turned this suggestion into a painting on the radio and then into an announcement over the public address system.
Honda lost its father in 2005, but what would Dad think about now?
Years after asking this question about architecture, after becoming popular around the world thanks to his work as a sound engineer, Honda began the verbal exchange with his father. “Before he could finish, he said, ‘I’m saying that and I regret saying it. ‘ But I’ll tell you, I’m very proud and satisfied that you’ve discovered something where you can be artistic.
“Here’s your answer. “
Honda talks about his nerves at the White Sox’s first game in 1985, in front of all the media he’d been listening to or reading for a long time. “I started to ask myself: what have they handed me over? Then I got a call from below. “Hey, look, are you okay? Are we going to do something a little bit different for the opening?What if you came here to advertise from the field?
“It’s his first day on the job. It’s a bad day if I can say I don’t believe it. “
As Honda drove into the field, he had a beer. “I get to the field, they give me headphones, a clipboard, the microphone. I turned left and this is the governor of the state of Illinois and I think you’ve had a beer for a moment. You’re getting by. You have to be a little nervous. This gives you a small advantage.
Are you still nervous after all those years?
“I hope so. I hope the feeling of the last Final Four doesn’t stop us from being nervous.
He talks about how exhausting his hobby can be, jumping from game to game, from stadium to stadium, from microphone to microphone. Like last week, when he played thirteen games in the Big Ten Basketball Tournament and then returned to Chicago for a Blackhawks game. “Our statistician said, ‘Hey, you’ve done a smart job with the Big Ten. Are you okay?’ I said, ‘yes, just tell me when we’re going to make loose shots tonight. ‘
“The voice resonates from time to time, but what gives away more is what’s between your ears. “
And he’s talking about what’s to come. There is no Final Four anymore, but at 69 years old he intends to keep moving with his other professions.
“As long as I can,” he says. I still do. I still think I’m pretty smart about that.
Take it next week when you return from the Final Four. He has been working with Chicago’s PBS station for 30 years and will be returning to Pittsburgh to take national engagement breaks for WQED, America’s oldest community-sponsored station and home to an Insurance that is an iconic children’s show. “I’ll have the honor and thrill of running there,” he says, “and then being kicked out of Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood. “
So Gene Honda has his memories and his resume is longer than Zach Edey’s arm. But for a true measure of fame, we haven’t gotten to the component yet.
There’s a figure of Gene Honda.
Yes, courtesy of the Bobblehead National Hall of Fame and Museum in Milwaukee.
“I’m sure there are still thousands,” Honda says. You have one at home, but it’s not exactly on the dining room table. “It’s in a box. When visitors come, you check them out to stimulate their appetite.
Just kidding. Gene Honda leaves his Final Four laughing.
Mike Lopresti is a member of the U. S. Basketball Writers Hall of Fame. He is a member of the U. S. Department of Homeland Security, the Ball State Journalism Hall of Fame, and the Indiana Sports Writers and Broadcasters Hall of Fame. He has covered school basketball for 43 years, totaling 39 Final Fours. He’s so old that he covered Bob Knight when he had black hair and basketball shorts were short.
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