Bob Costas, John Madden and Vin Scully are iconic names in the sports broadcasting world. These announcers are responsible for bringing a game to life to those not actually in an attendance. But at times, there have been moments that will go down in awful announcing history that puts the viewer in shock.

Before I go into some of those DVR rewinding moments, let’s go over what each announcers role in a booth are. For most sporting events, there are on average two announcers calling a game or match. There is the main announcer who calls the play-by-play portion and there is the color commentator who is there to give fun facts and tidbits about the game that may not be known to the viewer. These two complement each other very nicely.

What makes announcing a form of entertainment is the iconic calls that stick in viewers minds. Al Michaels’ “do you believe in miracles? yes!” call when the United States upset the heavily favored Russians in the 1980 semifinal of the Lake Placid Winter Olympics is arguably the greatest sports call of all time.

There are memorable announcers and broadcasts throughout sports history, but sometimes broadcasts stand out for the wrong reasons. None other than current college athletics broadcaster for ABC, Brent Musberger, comes to mind. 

No doubt, Musberger has seen it all and has been part of magical moments on the field, but in the 2012-13 BCS National Championship football game between Alabama and Notre Dame, he became famous for an on-air commentary for the history books.

As Alabama quarterback A.J. McCarron dissected the Notre Dame defense, the cameras turned to his girlfriend, Katherine Webb, in the stands. Webb, a graduate of Auburn University, go figure, was a former miss USA contestant and was donning McCarron’s #12 jersey.

Musberger proceeded to gush over her for a couple minutes saying things like “wow” and analyzing her beauty in what some would deem inappropriate for the platform he was on. Webb has since become famous, competing on reality shows and being in a scandalous Carl’s Jr. advertisement mimicking the famous scene.

Although that is a high profile case at the collegiate level, there have been announcing mishaps from even the Big Sky Conference, specifically a few moments from the Cal Poly vs Sacramento State football broadcast back on Nov. 9, that has rubbed me the wrong way.

The game at Cal Poly was live streamed on americanonesports.com in the Big Sky category and broadcasted by the Cal Poly radio team. Some of the things that were said really put Sac State and other California State Universities in a bad light.

It all began in the fourth quarter with Sac State down by a large margin, when the color commentator, Kyle Shotwell, proceeded to go into detail on why quality athletes can’t go to Cal Poly and opt for schools like Sac State.

“I don’t mean to bad mouth them as an academic institution, but their academic standards are lower, they’re gonna be able to get some of those guys who are very athletic who couldn’t get into Cal Poly.”

Let’s face it, Sac State isn’t a Stanford type school, and they’re not trying to be, but to say that we have better athletes because we take school less serious is an ignorant comment. It’s also a shot at athletes saying they aren’t always that smart fueling the stereotype of a meathead jock .

Play-by-play announcer, Tom Burkett chimed in giving his two cents.

“That’s what Fresno State’s for,” referring to Fresno as a lesser institution and taking a jab at what he referred to as his alma mater. “Some of those state schools, of which Cal Poly is one, they just have a different set of standards. Granted there’s the NCAA standard, but Cal Poly’s standards are a little bit higher.”

I have no problem with Cal Poly’s academic requirements being higher, but why is this a conversation taking place at a football game? A recruit watching who may live in the area could have been turned off by it just as much as I was.

With so many games being broadcasted now-a-days on all platforms, there will be many more moments that will not only be celebrated, but criticized and downright questioned as well.