AUBURN, Ala. – Looking up at a monitor in the press box at Jordan-Hare Stadium, Auburn play-by-play announcer Andy Burcham paints a picture for listeners of the Tigers' men's basketball team.
Suddenly, the screen freezes, a common occurrence for anyone who's ever streamed a TV show, only to see the signal buffer.
The voice of the Auburn Tigers pauses briefly until the video feed returns, with listeners unaware of the glitch.
"You wait for it to come back," Burcham said. "You really have no choice. When it comes back, you pick up where you left off."
A veteran of more than three decades of broadcasting, Burcham has called approximately 1,000 Auburn men's and women's basketball games, all of them on location until the Tigers' 2020-21 season opener on Thanksgiving.
Burcham and Sonny Smith are calling road games remotely this season, a common practice among broadcasters to limit travel during the coronavirus pandemic.Remote control: Sonny Smith (left) and Andy Burcham are calling Auburn away games from Jordan-Hare Stadium this seasonThanks to nifty engineering wizardry, listeners are still able to hear every swish, whistle and shoe squeak. For the season opener vs. Saint Joseph's in Fort Myers, Florida, the Auburn Sports Network received a feed from Fox's studio production team, the event's producer.
"It's trickier in a way because we are relying completely on somebody else to provide video and audio," said Brad Law, director of broadcast operations. "When it works, it's really seamless. They sent us the same mix of crowd mics in the arena that they used for their telecast."
"It's been a collective effort," said Ben Harling, Auburn Sports Properties interim general manager. "A lot of help from IT and [Auburn Athletics' technology director] Kevin Duvall, War Eagle Productions, and associate media relations director Cody Voga in coordinating postgame interviews. A lot of people put in a lot of work to get us to this point."
"It's going to be a chore all year to do this," Burcham said of the behind-the-scenes work of Law, Harling and their team. "It's not a small task to set up a broadcast to try to sound as much as we can like we're at the event."
With six remote road broadcasts under their belts, Andy and Sonny have settled in to their new routine.
"When you've got somebody as good as Andy, who stays up on every play and knows the number of every guy, it becomes very easy for me," Smith said. "So I just analyze the game as a coach, and he takes care of business for me."
For the beloved 84-year-old Smith, who has avoided most outings for the past 10 months except for trips to the grocery store, broadcasting games for the team he used to coach has provided a sense of normalcy.
"It's tough for us old folks," said Smith, expressing appreciation for his broadcast partner. "The same way with Rod [Bramblett], they took care of the things that I would not do well, and it makes it so easy and more enjoyable for me. It's not like work."
"We're still calling Auburn basketball," Burcham said. "And we're thrilled to be able to do it."Auburn Sports Properties interim general manager Ben Harling observes while Sonny Smith and Andy Burcham broadcast
Jeff Shearer is a Senior Writer at AuburnTigers.com. Follow him on Twitter: @jeff_shearer
At home on the road: pandemic play-by-play
