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BOSTON – Bob Davis has been doing the same job for 38 years – more than half of his life.
At age 61, the Topeka, Kansas, native not only has no plans to switch jobs, he wants to keep increasing that percentage as he gets older.
See, Davis has been living his dream as a sportscaster and he really doesn’t want to wake up any time soon. Actually, he’s got two dream jobs.
“I grew up not to far from Kansas City, so my other dream job is doing University of Kansas football and basketball, which I do,” said the play-by-play television voice of the Kansas City Royals during a recent trip to Fenway Park. “Those are things I aspired to and it eventually worked out.”
The 10-time sportscaster of the year in Kansas is also in his 10th season in front of the camera for the Royals Television Network. He has had only one color analyst TV partner: former Royals star pitcher Paul Splittorff, who is in his 19th season doing Royals TV games.
“I started a small radio-TV combination station in Kansas,” Davis said. “We started right out with it, so it was kind of primitive television in those days, but we had TV and we did a lot of radio.
“We did lots of ballgames with two high schools, a Division II college and several area high schools.”
The radio voice of the Kansas Jayhawks for the last 22 years spent 16 seasons announcing Fort Hays State University games and earned a spot in the school’s athletic hall of fame. He’s seen a lot of changes in the broadcast industry the last four decades.
“It’s amazing with computers and digital sound and digital recorders,” Davis said. “It’s different but I think it’s probably easier, yeah, and probably better, especially for the listeners and viewers.”
Davis has also been the radio voice for the NCAA women’s Final Four basketball championship games.
Announcing must be in the genes because Davis’ son Steven has been a radio announcer for the Idaho Falls Chukars, the Royals’ Rookie League team in the Pioneer League, for the last two seasons.
Speaking of family, spending so much time on the road can be a big negative for a job which doesn’t have many, but Davis and wife Linda have managed to more than make it work for more than 30 years.
“You do spend a lot of time on the road away from family, but my family has also had a chance to make a number of trips because of my job, be it to Fenway Park, Wrigley Field, basketball tournaments in Hawaii, Final Fours, bowl games,” Davis said. “They’ve had fun too along the way.”
Caron, Mae re-up with NESN
New England Sports Network has extended the contracts of broadcasters Tom Caron and Hazel Mae.
Caron, who was the radio and TV voice of the Portland Pirates for two seasons, joined NESN in 1995 and has won three New England Emmy awards with the network. He serves as Boston Red Sox pre- and postgame studio host.
Mae, who was the subject of rumors about her leaving, joined NESN in 2004 after having served as an anchor for Canadian all-sports network Rogers Sportsnet. She is lead anchor for NESN SportsDesk and Red Sox Rewind host. Mae’s contract was due to expire at the end of the summer.
Contract details were not released by NESN, but most standard contracts in the industry run two to three years.
Atlantic 10 media day goes live
Hempstead, N.Y., radio station WRHU (88.7 FM) will broadcast the Atlantic 10 conference’s football media day Wednesday live from Philadelphia on the air and on the A-10’s Web site at 222.atlantic10.org.
The broadcast will air from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and include interviews with A-10 head coaches and players such as preseason All-Americans David Ball of New Hampshire and Omar Cuff of Delaware.
Andrew Neff can be reached at 990-8205, 1-800-310-8600 or at aneff@bangordailynews.net
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