Yesterday, the University of Oklahoma announced that local sports broadcaster and all-around good guy Toby Rowland will be the new voice of Sooner athletics. I like this move for several reasons.
1. Toby is a cool dude. Back in the day when I started HornetsCentral.com, Toby was cool enough to have me on his radio show a couple of times to promote the site. He even contributed – for free – some columns about the team in our fan forum. Of course, he did all this because the co-founder of the site used to be an intern at Channel 9, but still, it was a cool thing for him to try and help us out. Also, he didn't flip out a few years ago when his employer wouldn't release him from his contract and prevented him from being the Thunder sideline announcer.
2. Toby is a pretty good broadcaster. His morning-drive sports talk show on KREF is one of best in the market, and totally dominates the Morning “Mailing It In” Animals. He has a play-by-play experience and is already part of the OU broadcast team. Plus, he has experience in television. With OU forming its own TV network, his experience as producer, anchor and reporter will come in pretty handy.
3. Toby is not Bob Barry Sr. Pretty much anyone is an improvement over Bob Barry Sr. Like Toby, I’ve heard that Bob Barry is a good guy that everyone likes, but he was a terrible play-by-play guy. I’d rather listen to Sloth from Goonies call an OU game than Bob Barry Sr.
Despite my enthusiasm, some people think Toby was a bad choice. They think that OU should have gone after a bigger name or a “more qualified” broadcaster. Of course, the leader of this group is Oklahoma’s most renown yardbird, Mr. Regular Jim Traber. On his radio show, Regular Jim claimed that Toby Rowland is a homer and not experienced enough for the position. He then mocked Toby for calling sports at SNU.
What’s ironic about this is that the Arizona Diamondbacks hired Jim Traber to provide color commentary of their baseball telecasts back in the early 2000s. They did this despite his most notable TV experience being a few appearances on “Sports Final” with Mark Ockerbloom. At the time, of course, Jim Traber didn't see a problem with the Diamondbacks hiring an inexperienced and clueless minor league baseball all star to provide color commentary for a large TV viewing audience, but when the University of Oklahoma hires a qualified local broadcaster to provide play-by-play radio broadcasts for people without televisions, it’s suddenly an outrage.
Anyway, since Jim Traber is a logical human being who hates hypocrisy, it got me thinking that there has to be some other underlying reason why Jim Traber doesn’t think Toby Rowland should get the job. I consulted with our former editor Tony and we came up with a list of possible reasons. They are listed below:
• Toby Rowland thinks that Fowler Productions sells cars.
• Toby Rowland doesn't like the band Mideon.
• Toby Rowland has never chased a Japanese pitcher.
• Toby Rowland is in decent shape.
• Toby Rowland is kind and rational human being.
• Toby Rowland has never been replaced by Mark Grace.
• Toby Rowland has no clue how to break in a baseball mitt.
• Toby Rowland has never failed miserably as a Major League Baseball player.
• Toby Rowland has never failed miserably as a college football quarterback.
• Toby Rowland always believed, and still does, that Russell Westbrook is an NBA-caliber point guard.
• Toby Rowland has never appeared on Canadian television.
• Toby Rowland doesn’t endorse illegal gambling or smoke Cuban cigars.
• Toby Rowland is not a big fan of turkey soup.
• Toby Rowland doesn’t use the Fat Jack Betting Service.
• Toby Rowland doesn’t masturbate to pictures of Cal Ripken Jr.
Once again, those are just some possible reasons why Jim Traber doesn't approve of the Toby Rowland hire. If you have some other ones, post them in the comments.
