Learning from Dayton Dragons broadcasters by Josh Evans

The Dayton Dragons media pass is nothing to laugh at. I was able to walk through the “backstage” of the minor league team’s facility. By the time I had gone down onto the field, through the team dugout, and back up to the press box, I was very pleased with what I had seen.  But the radio broadcasters were already behind the closed doors, so it took some guts to go open the door and let them know I was supposed to watch them as they broadcast. The main broadcaster, Tom Nichols, must have been Fifth Third Field at least three hours in advance of the start. A second thing that was important to him and his color commentator Mike Couzens were resources. There were rulebooks, rosters, two laptops, and more; it helped me see where they get a lot of their information.


During the game, both radio broadcasters were filling out a statistic sheet. And, although they could have waited for between innings and gotten the information from somewhere, they were both filling out the sheet while still broadcasting the game. Filling out stats is something that I really haven’t thought of as being important for the broadcaster. Sure, they need statistics but ... apparently sometimes they do it themselves. A second thing I saw was Mike Couzens looking up a word before he used it on the air. I don’t remember off-hand what the word was, but I saw him looking it up, and then he used it in his next comment. A key thing that I noticed though, was the giving out of player information in the broadcast. And the more I think about it, the more I realize every broadcaster does it. If so-and-so is batting, they will give season stats about him, his hometown, height, or whatever. This is something that will definitely be used in my future broadcasting career.

One final thing that I realized was the essentials of “note-passing.” The Dayton Dragons were hoping that the minor-league baseball team from Lansing would defeat the team from Fort Wayne, therefore giving the Dragons a preferable playoff spot. Mr. Nichols would occasionally get the update from Mr. Couzens and tell the people listening about the score. While Mr. Couzens was gone for a while, I noticed that there had not been a recent update. I then noticed that Lansing had taken a 3-1 lead on Fort Wayne. Taking a piece of notebook paper, I wrote “3-1 Lansing Top 7th” on the paper and put it in front of Mr. Nichols. He then gave everyone the update, then turned and gave me a thumbs-up.

After the game, Mr. Couzens brought one of the players to Mr. Nichols, who gave him an interview live. Once that was done, I thanked Mr. Nichols and gave him my business card. At the game, I learned that stat keeping is part of the responsibility, giving player information in the broadcast is important, and that giving updates is always a good idea.