Riding Airwaves to the Big Time : Announcers for Bullfrogs, Piranhas Hope to Work Their Way to Network Job

Lew Stowers’ remark delivers a blow for every kid who ever wanted to become Vin Scully.

“Because of my lack of nepotism,” the Bullfrogs’ radio announcer says matter-of-factly, “it’s difficult to break into network broadcasting.

“I think I’m talented enough to be in that club. I think I’ve proven it to myself the past four years, that I can do it as good or better than a Skip Caray. That’s what keeps me going.”

Stowers is one of thousands who describe minor league hockey, baseball, basketball, indoor soccer and arena football. And almost all of them aspire to reach the next level, ultimately landing a network job.

The two smaller Orange County teams with radio contracts aim at the same target with different stations.

The Bullfrogs roller hockey team is with its third station in three years but has landed on a station that caters to children. The Piranhas of the Arena Football League are a first-year team in Orange County whose games are on the same station as the Mighty Ducks.

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It’s loose in the booth when the Bullfrogs are playing and Stowers is describing the action. Gone is the tie he wore when he started in the business eight years ago in talk radio. As his own engineer, he has had to lug 100 pounds of equipment too many places to be concerned about looking right for a television camera that isn’t there.

He arrives at the arena 3 hours 45 minutes before a 2 1/2-hour broadcast on 830 AM Radio Aahs, a station aimed toward children with the slogan “Great music for great kids.” The Bullfrogs’ broadcast is the first local programming produced for a station on the Radio Aahs network, and the arrangement could ultimately lead to roller hockey becoming a major player on the network nationally.

Bullfrog General Manager Bob Elder loves the arrangement. “We feel the marriage of the family sport of the ‘90s with the family network of the ‘90s made sense because their audience is youngsters and moms.”

Stowers couldn’t do this without an understanding employer. Like an actor/waiter, broadcasting in the bush leagues requires a backup plan to pay the bills. By day, he is an account manager for The Lasorda Group, which sells employee leasing programs to small businesses. By night, he’s the voice of a professional sports franchise, feeding that desire to climb the ladder toward Bob Costashood.

He has produced and engineered UCLA football and basketball, the Rams and the Clippers. He has broadcast boxing on cable television, high school football, minor league baseball.

His partner in the broadcast booth is Charlie Simmer, 42, a former NHL player who also broadcasts Mighty Duck games. Simmer leaves all the technical stuff to Stowers, 39.

Stowers pores over notes in the hours leading up to the game, letting his pregame meal go to waste. He will be at the arena nearly eight hours before he leaves. Simmer attended practice the day before and gives the notes a cursory glance.

Simmer covers the game as though he is watching practice, standing, with hands in the pockets of his shorts, picking his moments in the ebb and flow of Stowers’ narrative. Like the rules of journalism, Stowers tells the audience the who, what, when and where; Simmer tells the why and how.

Their wit works well together, the product of good chemistry.

Not only is it a 2 1/2-hour infomercial to sell his sport, but “it adds credibility,” said Elder, who purchases the radio time for the broadcast and just hopes to break even on the radio venture. “Your successful franchises all have radio and/or television packages. We’re fortunate to have Lew and Charlie; they aren’t just two yo-yos trying to describe the game.”

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The booth door is closed when the first-year Piranhas play. Statistician Ghizal Hasan and engineer Rick Cutler flank Kevin Turner, 34, and Mark Halda, 37, who are broadcasting on 95.9 KEZY.

They played college football--Turner was a wide receiver on Arizona State’s 1983 Fiesta Bowl winner and an NFL scout for six years, Halda was the nation’s third-leading passer at San Diego State in 1978.

By the time Turner signs on, he has broken down game film, walked the field, talked to both coaches, warmed up his vocal cords and secluded himself three minutes before the broadcast to work up enough amperage to hit the microphone at 100 mph.

“I didn’t want to move to Pawtucket [R.I.],” Turner said. “So the challenge is to break into the second-largest media market in the country and not change an address or a zip code.”

That’s one of the common problems faced by new broadcasters, said Piranha President Roy Engelbrecht, who also runs the weeklong Sportscaster Camps of America in July; they don’t want to begin in an entry-level market.

“We’re trying to position ourselves in everything we do that we are major league,” Engelbrecht said. “It’s a public perception of being in the big time, being a credible sports franchise.”

Halda hasn’t worked the system the way Turner has. Halda hasn’t gone to play-by-play school and done Mater Dei and Los Alamitos football games for the experience. He hasn’t done updates for XTRA to get his foot in the door. He hasn’t done fill-in talk shows on weekends or pre- and postgame shows for UCLA football and basketball before getting a pro gig. Halda was simply recommended for the job as SDSU’s color man in 1990 by Brian Sipe, another former Aztec quarterback who turned it down.

Halda’s goal would be to hit the lottery--have someone hear him, recognize his talent “and Boom, take it to the next level.” For him, that would be a regional college analyst.

He owns Halda-Spangler, a mortgage firm in the San Diego area, and has a healthy attitude about who the most important guy in the booth is.

“Kevin’s got the tough job,” Halda said. “It’s Kevin’s job to give you the stats. It’s my job to tell you what’s going on.

“I’ve been blessed because Kevin’s real good. If you have a real average play-by-play guy, it kills you. From my standpoint, they set the table.”

Though not your typical “media type,” Halda realizes the common thread in a wicked business.

“I’m not really in the business, but the one thing that disillusions me is sometimes you don’t get the jobs on merit,” he said. “You can be on the fast track and all of a sudden, Bam! It doesn’t make sense. You don’t have control. You’re at the whim of someone else. You can be the greatest guy right now and Boom, you’re gone.

“There’s no commitment. And I think that would be scary--to be in this business full time. I don’t know how those guys do it.”

But he strives for it, just the same.