Editorial
Front Page - Friday, June 18, 2010
Bad calls on the field make for good calls in life
David Laprad
Scott McMahen, co-host of SportTalk on 102.3 FM in Chattanooga, sits where he works weekdays from 4 to 7 p.m. McMahen and his partners, Gary Haskew and Joe Varner, talk Atlanta Braves baseball, Mocs basketball, Titans football and any number of other regional sports.
- David Laprad
It’s the day after umpire Jim Joyce cost Detroit Tiger pitcher Armando Galarraga the 21st perfect game in the history of Major League Baseball, and Scott McMahen, co-host of SportTalk on 102.3 FM in Chattanooga, is itching to get on the air. Like his partners, Dr. Basketball and Cowboy Joe, McMahen is eager to voice his opinion about what the botched call could mean for the future of America’s favorite pastime. With one hour to kill before the show begins, he starts to warm up, like a pitcher in a bullpen.
“It’s time for instant replay. Some baseball fans like the human element of a mistake here and there, but why would you want to take away what (Galarraga) did in front of everybody? It’s a black eye on the face of the sport” McMahen says. “Dr. B will argue the other side because he’s an old schooler. He likes things to stay the way they are. But it’s not about whether we should stay the same or move into the future, it’s about getting things right.”
McMahen leans back in his chair and smiles like he’s thrown a strike and caught the batter looking.
This is what McMahen does weekdays from 4:00 to 7:00 p.m., whether he, Gary Haskew and Joe Varner are talking Atlanta Braves baseball, Mocs basketball, Titans football or any number of other regional sports. Going by the name of “Quake” on the show, he’s quick, sharp and unapologetic, and he talks with a rare blend of skillful articulation and Regular Joe backslappery. He is, quite simply, good at what he does.
He should be, given that he’s been doing it since eighth grade.
“Me and another guy were on the basketball team at Hixson Junior High. We weren’t very good, so we spent a lot of time on the bench,” McMahen says. “We’d sit there and talk like we were John Ward and Bill Anderson, the play-by-play and color guy from the Vol Network in the early ‘80s. We were joking back and forth when all of a sudden I realized that’s what I wanted to do.”
McMahen’s mother supported her budding sports commentator, taking him to The Explorers Club and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga to speak with Dr. Peter Pringle, head of the school’s communications department at the time.
“I’ve had a lot of people tell me I’m fortunate I knew what I wanted to do at a young age,” he says. “I have a friend who’s 32 and still doesn’t know what he wants to do, so I do feel fortunate.”
Like Peyton Manning zeroing in on a receiver, McMahen stayed on target through college at UTC, running the board at WGOW on weekends and earning a broadcasting degree. To this day, McMahen credits his success to good timing. “I was lucky to slide in before the computer age, when the station still needed somebody to press a button to start a commercial,” he says. “I’ve seen a lot of guys with talent and knowledge but no way to get experience. I was just at the right place at the right time.”
After running the board for a couple of years in the late ‘80s, McMahen began producing SportTalk, which at the time was the on-air platform for Sport Magazine writer J. David Miller. Later, after Jerre and Gary Haskew took over as hosts, McMahen started taking part in more and more of the talk and introducing creative bits to the show. When Jerre retired in 2000, McMahen took his place behind the mic.
McMahen says his primary role on the show is to bring balance to the opposing perspectives of his co-hosts. “SportTalk is more or less a roundtable discussion between Gary, who’s 68, me, who’s 41, and Joe, who’s 30. Doc can talk about what it was like to watch Mickey Mantle and Jackie Robinson play baseball in the ‘50s, I’m good with the late ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s stuff, and Joe tells us how the new generation looks at things. So it’s a good mix of three guys who are sports-minded but come at it from different angles.”
While McMahen loves to talk sports, he says the most satisfying part of his job is the way in which the show touches people from every walk of life -- from Chattanooga’s well-heeled to the less fortunate. “We might do a remote at a golf course on Wednesday and have people who drive $80,000 cars on the show. Then, on Thursday, we might be at a car dealership, and someone who looks like he hasn’t had a meal in a while will come by and get a free sandwich. Then we might go to a convenience store on Friday and talk with people who are filling up their gas tank on the way to the campground. It’s really satisfying to be able to entertain all of these people, regardless of their income, or job, or status in the community,” McMahen says.
McMahen also enjoys meeting sports celebrities, either in person or on the phone. From Tiger Woods to Charles Barkley, McMahen would need a big broom to sweep up all the names he could drop at a party.
“Pat Summit is one of the classiest persons I’ve ever met. She’s a legend, and she’ll send you a thank you note for you having her on your show,” he says, adding that his wife has grown immune to his attempts to impress her with the people he’s met.
He keeps the show and his role on it in perspective, though, saying he knows it’s a small oasis of entertainment in a world struggling with big problems. “We’re not trying to find Bin Laden, we’re just talking about sports. It’s not life and death, it’s a three-hour period of comic relief in a 24-hour day filled with tragedy. People deserve a few hours in the afternoon to kick back with a cold drink and laugh a few times. That’s what we try to provide,” he says.
McMahen wasn’t just in the right place at the right time, he was the right guy in the
right place at the right time. From the team at WGOW to
his devoted listeners, others would agree. Even Joyce would have to concur that when McMahen said he wanted to talk sports for a living, he made the right call.
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