Announcers come in all shapes and sizes, and an intern at Swimming World came up with probably the best piece of writing on announcing swimming that we’ve ever seen.  Props to Andrew Ross, you have a future ahead of you, and we’d love to have you contribute to our site too.  You’d be an asset!

Swimming World: The Are of the Swimming P. A. Announcer

In the piece, Ross starts out strong with a statement that most announcers could make about their own sport, and he keeps going.  This read is a must for any announcer who might be thinking about announcing a swim meet.

“The public address announcer can be the most important person at a swim meet. He or she is in charge and controls the pace of the meet and is the one who can make a swim meet exciting or boring. But after watching and attending many swim meets in my time, I have noticed that a lot of PA Announcers fall on the boring side.”

Ross also helps us by posting some samples and naming names.  Some of those names include Brian Gordon who announces SEC meets, Michael Poropat and Chris Hindmarch-Watson who call USA Swimming meets, and Sam Kendricks who covers NCAA and USA Swimming meets.

He then goes into a well thought out summation of the keys to being a good announcer such as voice quality, excitement/engagement, music, and intros.  He’s one of us!

Take a look at the story above, it’s required reading.