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Dynamic is the style of Zumoff's play-by-play; whether he's touting the
shot- blocking prowess of forward George Lynch, whom he calls "Nails,"
or describing an out of-this-world play by lverson. Zumoff's flamboyant
expressions and signature phrases trip off his tongue. "Bald is beautiful,"
he bellows when dean-shaven Matt Geiger dunks the ball. "Two from
Lynchburg," he declares when forward George Lynch nails a 15-footer.
"Hill, going to work in the weight room," he declares as power
forward Tyrone Hill out-muscles his opponent to grab a "man's"
rebound. "Turning garbage into gold," he exclaims when a player
cleans up a teammate's errant shot to score.
Much of his clever verbiage is spontaneous; however, he conceived an unforgettable
nickname in 1999 while musing thoughtfu1ly in a hotel room. Born was "Flight
Brothers," a term he coined to describe the aerodynamics of Iverson
and now ex-Sixer Larry Hughes. Iverson would throw a lob to the basket;
Hughes would take off at the top of a the key; catch the ball high above
the rim, and dunk it emphatically.
The voice of the 76ers since 1994, Zumoff is fulfilling a childhood dream
that began some 30 years ago. As a Northeast Philadelphia schoolboy; he
reveled in listening to Sixers and Flyers games on the radio, and sometimes
his dad took him to Convention Hall to see his heroes in person: Wilt
Chamberlain, Hal Greer, and other 76er greats who brought glory to the
city with a title in 1967.
But even more than the players, Zumoff idolized the men off the court:
the announcers whose familiar voices and familiar sayings brought games
alive to hundreds of listeners, including young boys like himself. These
broadcasters - with characteristic inflection and color - had a the ability
to make the athletes seem superhuman and s each play more electrifying
than the next.
By the fourth grade, Zumoff was concocting his own makeshift productions.
With his tape recorder spinning, he would tune his TV to Channel 8, a
static-heavy station that represented the din of a fictitious crowd, and
then announce, extemporaneously; an imaginary game. To underscore spectacular
plays, he would crank up the static in the background and unleash the
exultation of some 17,000 fans.
Often collaborating with him was his friend Larry Rosen, , another die-hard
sports enthusiast and now the director of broadcasting and video production
for the Baltimore s Ravens. Says Rosen: "I met Marc when I was 11.
I knew then that I wanted to be a broadcaster, and Marc knew that he did
too. We used to do fake broadcasts ...[and] watch 76ers games together
in Marc's house. When we got to go to a game, we would enjoy seeing the
players, but we would freak out to meet the broadcasters." Some broadcasters
enter the business because they were once athletes, but that was not true
in Zumoff's case. On the court, he was - well - less fluent than the other
guys. "When I was a kid, I was kind of chunky and nerdy and was never
really groomed in any way to play sports," he says. "When the
kids in the neighborhood played stickball, I was the guy who kept the
stats and the standings and announced the games." (Today; he is remarkably
fit, and enjoys running, working out, and playing golf and softball.)
In 1973, he entered Temple's radio, television, and film (RTF) program.
Rosen, BA SCAT '84, did, too, and they shared an apartment as they worked
their way through school. Zumoff finally hit the airwaves at WRFT, a small
radio station on Temple's Ambler campus where he dee-jayed and did news
reporting (and where he now serves as an adviser) .A stint at Temple's
public radio station on Main Campus, WRTI, also afforded him the opportunity
to do live sportscasts and collaborate on the news program The Evening
Report. "I've always felt that getting to do a big event on a big
medium helps you to grow up," he muses.
He was also
growing up professionally in a course taught by Bob Bradley; a 30-year
KYW- TV veteran. "An amazing amount of the material and concepts
he taught me I still use today;" says Zumoff, who likewise credits
Bill Bransome (a longtime Philadelphia radio/TV personality) and Mike
Emrick (a former Flyers announcer) as being role models.
Valuable lessons also came from Dr. Gordon Gray; now a retired chairman
of Temple's RTF department. Gray recalls: "Occasionally a student
came to our program with on-air skills already well honed. Marc was one
of those students. His natural talents, his intense interest in sports,
and, I suspect, considerable prior work on his own, made him a good prospect
for a successful on-air broadcasting career. He, of course, has lived
up to expectations."
As a college senior in 1976, Zumoff needed an internship in commercial
radio to round out his resume. Larry Rosen came to the rescue and got
him an interview at KYW Newsradio. Zumoff was hired as a desk assistant,
which he describes as "the lowest form of life there." He hustled
about getting coffee and doing anything he could do to impress his super-
visors. They were indeed impressed and offered Zumoff an unpaid two-day-a-week
on-air gig. The bad news was that it was the red-eye shift: from midnight
on Fridays to 8 a.m. on Saturdays, a time when most of his classmates
were "out partying."
The fast -paced environment and constant breaking news also helped him
to think on his feet. His very first shift on the job was the night Jimmy
Carter was elected and proved to be a professional challenge for which
no classroom could have fully prepared him. In 1977, a few credits short
of graduating (he completed his bachelor's degree in 1992), Zumoff went
looking for a paid, on-air job as a radio broadcaster and found one in
Trenton: WBUD. For eight hours a day he read wire-service copy; with just
two commercial breaks an hour. He paid his dues there and at two other
Trenton radio stations: WKXW and WHWH.
His proverbial
big break came two years later when the Major Indoor Soccer League came
to town in the form of a new franchise called the Philadelphia Fever.
A Temple chum, Rob Grossman, BA SCAT 75, then the Fever's PR director
and now the national sales manager for WXTU- FM in Philadelphia, told
Zumoff that the team needed a full-time TV announcer.
Since Zumoff had no television experience, he used a little ingenuity: "One night, Rob and I paid a janitor to let us into the Fever offices
when no one was there. We watched a video tape of one of the games. I
didn't know any of the players or any of the terms." The result was
that he made a good-enough demo tape to warrant an on-air audition that
was scheduled during the Fever's season opener and would air locally on
WPHL-TV 17.
The intensity of Zumoff's do-or-die audition was exacerbated when the
regular color guy (the commentator-analyst who pairs with the announcer)
got sick. The station called in veteran Phillies broadcaster Harry Kalas
to fill in. "I think the reason they did that- Harry really didn't
know that much about soccer -was that in case I hyperventilated and fainted
on television, Harry would be there to dean up the mess," Zumoff
says. But there was no mess. Zumoff's performance was "pretty good," according to Kalas who took his protege-for-a-day out to dinner afterward.
For the next two years, Zumoff "had a blast" calling the games
and becoming, in a sense, the "Gene Hart of the Fever." The
late Hart was the Flyers' television play-by- play announcer from the
team's inception in 1967 until 1999. Zumoff took "very seriously" the Fever's charge to emulate him.
Zumoff's telecasts
caught the attention of PRISM, a sports and entertainment TV network that
was later bought out by Comcast. He was hired in 1982 to host "PRISM
Extra," a daily sports report, twice a week. By 1983, Zumoff was
a full-time anchor/producer, one of Philadelphia's most visible sportscasters,
and a newlywed. (He and his wife Debbie have since become the parents
of two sons: Jacob and Pace.)
In 1989, the year the couple's first son was born, Zumoff was nominated
for a regional Ernmy Award by the National Academy of Arts and Sciences.
He earned five additional nominations between 1989 and 1991 and has since
captured seven awards. As Zumoff mounted his career at PRISM and its sister
station where he did sideline reporting for the Sixers and produced some
of the team's ha1ftime and pre-/postgame shows -he received another career
boost " due to a tragedy: Jim Barniak, the voice of the 76ers and
a long time sports director at PRISM, took ill and passed away shortly
thereafter. For the next two seasons, Zumoff shared the Sixers' play-by-play
duties, often with stand-in Andy Musser, a regular Phillies announcer.
But the Sixers still hadn't named a permanent "voice."
He explains what happened next: "Sixers TV producer Jon Slobotkin,
who is one of my good friends and a fellow Temple grad, was sitting with
me in our offices on August 17,1994 when the phone rang. It was the call
offering me the job as the Sixers "voice." Jon marked down the
date and the exact time that I got that call on a little piece of paper.
I put it in a frame and it's up on my wall at home." (Slobotkin,
BA SCAT '85, is currently a television producer for the Phillies.)
When Zumoff reported for duty at the start of the 1994-95 season, he was
paired with Sixers color commentator Steve Mix, a 13-year NBA forward
and former 76er. "And we've been joined at the hip ever since," he quips. They're friends off air as well.
"Marc & Steve," as they are known to Sixers' fans, have
a rare on-air chemistry that combines repartee, inside humor, and insightful
basketball analysis. They complement each other well, as Zumoff explains:
"1 think the thing that helps is that we're pretty much opposite.
He played the game; I didn't. He's from the Midwest; I'm from the East.
And for the way he played, I have a respect for him. I think I he respects
me for what I do professionally; We kid each I other about our differences,
about our shortcomings, and we don't take it personally. It's like a married
couple.
"Right from the start, we clicked pretty well," Mix confirms.
"Anytime you work with a new partner, you feel uneasy at first. You
have certain concerns: Are we going to 1. mix? Am I going to step on his
words? Is he going to pick up where I left off? But right from the git
-go, we seemed to understand each other and get along."
Mix adds, "There is no real formal training for ex-players who become
analysts. Marc went to Temple and learned to do it correctly; He's helped
me tremendously from the television aspect:"
Their repartee is one reason why veteran Philadelphia a Daily News sportswriter
Phil Jasner, BS SBM '64, likes the twosome. In fact, many Philadelphians
can relate to them, Jasner says: "People do identify with their local
broadcasters. They identified with Merri1l Reese, the late Richie Ashburn,
and still with Harry Kalas. Marc is one of the a new kids on the block,
but the same identity is there. Sixers' fans know that when they turn
on the game, Marc and Steve will be there. And the dyed-in-the-wool fans
think of them as family and want to know what they think and what their
interpretations of things are. Marc welcomes you into that family."
The NBA regular season is 82 games long, from November to April. It is
a grueling schedule for the players as well as the on-air and behind-the-scenes
crews who travel with the 76ers and produce broadcasts night in and night
out on Comcast SportsNet or on UPN-TV 57. Zumoff rarely misses a game,
no matter the circumstances. "I've done games when literally I had
25 percent of my voice," he says.
His job-related traveling takes a toll on his family who, ironically,
is tepid about basketball and only attends a handful of home games. "My
wife is an absolute saint. .. and never complains because she realizes
this is a dream of mine," he notes. While he is away on a road trip
{some- times for up to a week), his wife takes care of the day-to- day
issues of family life; she also works full time as an executive VP of
a tracing firm in West Conshohocken. The arrangement is not completely
lopsided, though: he makes up for lost time during the off - season.
On a typical
game day; Zumoff leaves his Montgomery County home in the morning and
heads to the gym of the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine,
where the Sixers hold shoot-arounds. Then he's off to the First Union
Center, the arena that the 76ers and Flyers share in South Philly: During
the drive, he phones Mix and his television producer, Shawn Oleksiak,
BA SCAT '87, to discuss that night's match-up. They plan pre-game interviews,
the opening of the show, and the "game tease," a 30-second
spot which introduces the telecast with voice-over narration, video
clips - and theater.
Preparing for the broadcast takes up the next two to four hours. Zumoff
creates a spreadsheet that contains back- ground information on both
teams, the latest injury reports, records, stats -the gamut. "It
looks pretty overwhelming, but it all makes sense to me," he says.
"This is my baby. This is what I spend my time on and have in front
of me during the game."
On-air patter originates from interesting trivia and statistics, which
Zumoff uncovers by doing research via local and national newspapers,
magazines, game notes issued by both teams, and the Internet to access
the hometown papers of the opposing team. Then he crams. "The funny
thing is, it's sort of like studying for a psych test in that you know
the stuff and then after you take the test, you forget a lot of it," he admits.
Zumoff is "knowledgeable" and "incredibly prepared,"
Jasner assesses. "I love the way he communicates things.
He knows what it is to come up the hard way and do all the little jobs
that got him where he is today...and he's always looking to learn. I
have great respect for people who do their homework, and I don't know
any other broadcaster who does his homework better than Marc."
"I spend a lot of time watching other NBA broadcasts," notes
Dave Coskey; senior VP of the Sixers, "and can say without a doubt
that Marc is one of the best broadcasters in the game today: This is
a testament to his work ethic more than anything else."
Zumoff and Mix host the entire show live: unrehearsed and unscripted. "You're always walking the tightrope," Zumoff says about the
intense, often frantic environs of a near three-hour telecast. Anything
can happen and, some- times, anything does. "It requires a level
of concentration that's so high, you literally feel like you're high
because your senses are everywhere," he explains. "You have
a stat guy who's feeding you things. You have a computer with a live,
real-time score box. You're interacting with your partner. The refs
are making calls. The coaches are arguing. The players are arguing.
Somebody's calling a time-out. There's a rule you don't know..:"
All the while, he must reiterate the score and the game/shot clocks
- and ease into commercial breaks.
"Marc is tremendous. He has a complete grasp of the medium of television,"
notes Oleksiak, who has produced the Sixers' telecasts for more than
six seasons. "Life as a producer is made easier when the talent
understands the mission. He's not out there trying to make himself the
star."
Zumoff remains chipper even when the Sixers experience an ignoble defeat. He beams with infectious enthusiasm for the team's "yeoman-like" efforts. It is an attitude, he says, that trickles down from team president
Pat Croce. Lately; Croce and Zumoff's enthusiasm is justified: the Sixers
are winning big after a long drought. In 1999, the team made the playoffs
for the first time since the 1990-91 season, finishing sixth in the
Eastern Conference. Last season, they improved their record by placing
fifth in the East and making a respectable run in the postseason. Better
yet, the 76ers broke a franchise record last November when they started
the 2000-01 season with a perfect 10-0 record; since then, they have
managed to clinch the No.1 spot in the NBA for weeks at a time. Contributing
to the team's newfound success is former Owl Aaron McKie, who was the
NBA player of d the week in late December.
Zumoff says that his optimism stems from being a genuine 76ers fan,
an admirable trait in a city where the fans' crassness is as legendary
as the star athletes.
Dave Coskey considers Zumoff "one of the most valuable marketing
tools we have at the Philadelphia 76ers." And that, Coskey says,
"is a pretty bold statement given the fact that we have been quite
successful in re-imaging and re-marketing the 76ers throughout the past
four seasons. l strongly believe that our television broadcast is our
best way to communicate with consumers."
Zumoff also has made a name for himself outside the Philadelphia market.
Turner Sports hired him as a side- line reporter for a few nationally
televised NBA games and, last February, invited him to call a game on
TNT with venerated analyst/ex-coach Hubie Brown. But breaking out of
the local market doesn't interest Zumoff.
"Marc is a 44-year-old man who's never left Philadelphia, the fourth-largest
market," Rosen notes. "That's extremely rare. He's had a dynamic
career in his hometown. You'd be hard-pressed to find someone else who
is living out his childhood dream so specifically and elaborately."
Zumoff plans to remain the voice of the Sixers for as long as they'll
have him. He ultimately hopes to join the ranks of the epic sportscasters
he so admires. "I would like to be remembered as a guy who was
passionate, always came prepared, always was enthusiastic...and someone
who took time to interact with the people who loved the team. Gee, that's
a lot to get on a tombstone."
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