Tonight, former Rams, Giants, and Cardinals quarterback Kurt Warner will make his television debut in the same operation where his football career initially flourished -- the Arena Football League. Specifically, he’ll be calling the game between the Iowa Barnstormers and the Arizona Rattlers on NFL Network.
It’s part of an effort by Warner to get a job working NFL games.
Warner tells Michael Hiestand of USA Today that the freshly-retired future Hall of Famer has “talked with all the networks” and that “now it’s just wait and see” as to whether he’ll get a job. The fact that he has yet to secure a job has prompted speculation in some circles that he’ll eventually choose to play again, something Warner has denied strongly.
Warner says he’d prefer calling games to working in a studio, because “you could share more personal anecdotes than having someone pick a topic and tell you to talk about it.” Frankly, an overt desire to share “personal anecdotes” sounds too much like the Bill Walsh/Joe Montana “I, we, me” approach to broadcasting, which simply doesn’t work. Fans don’t want to see former players or coaches wallow in their faded greatness, but to instead use their experience as the lens through which the average viewer can better understand and/or enjoy the things happening on his or her television. That’s one of the reasons why John Madden won a Sports Emmy last month for a lifetime of broadcasting excellence. He knew how to use his years in the NFL to enhance the production, without ever making any of it about him.
It doesn’t mean that Kurt should stuff his “personal anecdotes” in a sack. The challenge is to find the right way to tap into his experiences as an enhancement of the game he’s covering without cramming down the audience’s throat the fact that he was a two time league MVP and a Super Bowl MVP and one of the most compelling rags to riches to rags to riches stories in the history of pro sports.
