ESPN shifts announcers all the time, and the moves usually don’t produce headlines. Especially for a play-by-play voice for college football games on ESPNU.
However, news that ESPN dropped Pam Ward off its roster of announcers for college football Monday blazed through the Internet Monday. The story was among the most popular at USA Today’s site and elsewhere.
Why? Why do you think?
Ward is a woman. In fact, she and Beth Mowins were the only two women calling college football games for ESPN last year. When ESPN cuts the field of female play-by-play voices in half, that’s news.
And furthermore, Ward was the first woman play-by-play voice on college football, beginning her run in 2000. Ward even was labeled as “a trailblazer” in a statement by ESPN.
So her reassignment in that regard also is news. According to ESPN, she will “continue to be a big part of our coverage plans across multiple sports including college basketball, softball, the WNBA and more.”
Just not college football on ESPNU.
ESPN gave her 11 years. It’s not as if Ward was moved out simply because she is a woman.
Yet there will be people who assume that’s the case. Let a woman call the WNBA or college softball. But by golly, don’t let her near a football game.
Ward had her fair share of critics, most notably Awfulannouncing.com. Her face is prominent at the top of AA’s site in its Mt. Rushmore of least favorite announcers, joining Dick Vitale, Tim McCarver and Craig James.
Tuesday, AA’s Matt Yoder did an installment of “The Pam Ward Chronicles,” detailing her mistakes on college football play-by-play dating back to 2007. It’s fairly brutal stuff. It has to be devastating for Ward to be the brunt of such an assault on her work.
I made an attempt to talk to Ward Tuesday, but an ESPN spokesman said she isn’t doing any interviews.
According to an ESPN insider I talked to, Ward “didn’t make more mistakes than (any male) play-by-play announcer.” It happens if you’re on the air long enough.
The insider praised Ward and said: “Voice aside, she wouldn’t be getting the same kind of criticism if she was a man.”
Perhaps, but we’ll never know for sure because Ward is a woman. A woman who made news because she no longer will be doing college football for ESPN.
Left unsaid is that she got the job, in part, as a novelty. She made good because she was a she. Mike Tirico became the voice of golf on Disney platforms with a very slight background, as well. These things happen.
However, Ward’s flubs were more numerous and egregious than her compatriots on ESPN. She could have handled J-P or Sunshine Network games, but she was not ready for the assignment and, to me, never grew sufficiently into it.