Tag: patriots

A Super Sunday For an Off-Duty NFL Announcer

Five years AFTER calling my fourth Super Bowl, I wasn’t where I wanted to be on Sunday; but where I was supposed to be.

After calling the first Super Bowl overtime in 2017, I watched the second from home on Sunday.

Appetizers were disappearing fast, while the main course waited to be roasted and grilled. The house was filled by in-laws invited for our semi-regular Sunday dinner, which on this once-a-year occasion doubled as a Super Bowl viewing party.

It was after 6 o’clock, about a half-hour to kickoff, and where was I, the biggest football fan in the family? Not home; not yet. Twenty-five miles from chips and cheese board, and the pale ale I’d picked up solely for the game, I was in one of the last places I typically want to be: a crowded and noisy shopping mall, subjected to the aromatic alchemy of the nearby Food Court. And I was growing increasingly impatient, waiting for my 12-year old to reemerge from a high-voltage playground known as Level 99. “A first of its kind,” according to its website, Level 99 features “ over 50-real world physical and mental challenges and games, craft drinks and elevated dining.”

Hours earlier, I’d driven my daughter there from drama practice — she’s playing Amanda Thripp in her middle-school production of ‘Matilda’ — to a meetup with friends. Resistant to the allure of ‘craft drinks and elevated dining,’ I gave her some independence from Dad and became a mall walker. 

Wandering in search of a Valentine’s gift for my wife, I went in and out of anchor department stores and weaved around kiosks, evading the many retail interceptors pitching makeup and moisturizers, fidget spinners and cell phone cases. Could there possibly be so many people for whom phones are fashion accessories?

Occasionally, I scrolled for news on mine, which is still protected by the same black case I bought with my device several years ago. Otherwise, I remained disconnected from the event most Americans were fixed on. Missing pregame programming wasn’t a bother; I’d missed it before. 

The past four years, for instance, I chose, like this one, to bypass the hype with the same elusiveness I showed sellers of minerals from the Dead Sea. In prior years, I had no choice; I wasn’t watching because I was working — at the games. Nope, I didn’t catch any of NBC’s chatter before Super Bowl XLIX. Or FOX’s for LI, NBC’s ahead of LII or CBS’s in the hours preceding LIII. I had my own broadcast to call. 

On those afternoons, outside of Phoenix and in Houston, Minneapolis and Atlanta, I was getting ready to go on the air of the New England Patriots radio network. It was my voice (and that of partner Scott Zolak) heard on Pats broadcasts when Malcolm Butler intercepted Russell Wilson, James White ended the first Super Bowl overtime by scoring the last six points of the largest comeback in the game’s history and Tom Brady took a knee on the final snap of New England’s sixth championship victory. And, yeh, we also called (less enthusiastically) the unanswered Hail Mary at the end of the highest-scoring Super Bowl, won by Philadelphia, 41–33.

The view from the Patriots radio booth before Super Bowl LIII in Atlanta.

Reality Check

When asked what it was like in those moments, my response is any of the following: Out of body. Surreal. Incredible. Unbelievable. And years later, while waiting to the whiff of fast foods, dings of arcade games and flashes of laser lights while two of my peers were saying hello to audiences in Kansas City and San Francisco? All of the above, and more. And how! 

At that moment, I even wondered, as I sometimes do, ‘did they ever occur at all?’ To me, they can feel as ephemeral as they are eternal. They were real; and yes, they were spectacular. And I was lucky as hell to experience them.

Snapped back to the reality of the present, my waiting game had to end. Back home, chicken and steak tips had gone on the grill. Vegetables were in the oven. Checking the GPS on my phone, I confirmed it would be impossible to get back there in time for the opening kick. I needed to go in.

Inside was chaos arranged in a maze of rooms and activities. I didn’t see my daughter at first. Nor her friends. Again the craft drinks on tap behind a long bar beckoned. Again I resisted. I stepped out, thinking I might have missed her. I texted, without reply. I went back in, without a sighting. I left again. This time, I called. Again without reply. I returned inside. And there she was.

We have to go, I said. I have to get my phone, she told me, leading me to a small storage locker. It didn’t open. Not on the first try. Nor the second. We found an employee to assist. He quizzed her on the contents, and turned his key. Just as she said, a $10 bill and phone, in its yellow case, rested inside. 

With my car parked close to the exit, we hurried to leave. I backed out of my space and, of course, started the wrong way inside the garage. Turning around, I got us out, with a good 25–30 minutes still ahead of us. I turned on the radio. Former Super Bowl most valuable player Kurt Warner was interviewing the quarterbacks.

Wired from the blast she had with her friends, my daughter plugged in her playlist. The soundtrack of “Hamilton” blared, and she happily sang along. Just as she did the previous night, during a similar drive home in darkness from a dance showcase, where she performed beautifully. 

As game time approached, I convinced her to get an update from Las Vegas, site of LVIII. Post Malone was singing “America The Beautiful.” Put your right hand on your heart, she told me. I couldn’t, shifting lanes approaching the highway exit on our right. Two hands on the wheel, I told her, even as Reba McIntyre sang the national anthem.

A few minutes, a few S-curves and a left turn later, we pulled into our driveaway and hustled to the front door. I couldn’t wait to eat. San Fran was driving promisingly in the opening series. The grill, my wife informed me, wasn’t going so well. Not hot enough. Its flames, but, thankfully, not my patient relatives, were doing a slow burn. I poured a beer, just as Christian McCaffrey fumbled the ball to KC, and went out to the patio to assess the situation. 

One out of three burners was cooking. Great batting average. Not good enough to feed the hungry guests, or hosts. We called an audible, opting for a run inside. Thankfully, we fared better than the 49ers on their first drive. The food turned out great.

Real and Forever

Typically, I’m not one to enjoy viewing parties. I prefer watching sporting events I’m most interested in with little background noise and activity, which you might find strange, considering that during most games I care about, I’m talking over the sounds of 60,000 plus. 

On Super Bowl Sunday, I watched the first half, as little cousins shrieked and laughed over announcers Jim Nantz and Tony Romo and our dog determinedly pushed past me to reach my overly generous, food-sharing father-in-law. Eventually, I pulled him back and the house emptied of visitors. 

Around the time Usher took the halftime stage, our viewing party was down to my son and I. It ended, as you know, watching Patrick Mahomes roll right and toss the title-clinching touchdown pass to Mecole Hardman.

Like the Patriots I described more recently than it sometimes seems, the Chiefs were overtime winners and champions for a third time in five seasons. But unlike those Pats’ wins, there was no celebration to attend; only bedtime after I finished cleaning up.

Not the ending to Super Bowl Sunday anyone associated with an NFL team hopes to live. But when your biggest gripe on the biggest game day of the year is going to the mall or grilling on a stove top instead of a Weber, you’re living well. Especially when you can watch your daughter dance and hear her sing, and talk about the game with your son sitting next to you. Those moments are real; and they’re forever.

Originally published at www.bobsocci.com. Bob has been the New England Patriots radio broadcaster since 2013. He also writes for Boston’s 98.5 The Sports Hub.

Mayo, a leader of men in his own way

The following first appeared on 985thesportshub.com on Friday, Jan. 12, after former Patriots linebacker Jerod Mayo was hired as the team’s new head coach.

Author (left) with Jerod Mayo (center) and Scott Zolak at a pre-Super Bowl LIII rally at Gillette Stadium on Jan. 27, 2019. (Photo by David Silverman)

The first time I met Jerod Mayo, he poked fun at my stentorian cadence behind a microphone in the middle of a high school field. True, before Hardy on 98.5, I was mimicked by Jerod, from Hampton Roads.

We were in Newtown, Conn. for a day-long event centered around a youth football clinic conducted by Patriots players and assistant coaches in the spring of 2013. As emcee, it was my first ‘official’ role as the team’s newly-hired broadcaster.  

Drills concluded, and I introduced Mayo for a few words to the kids and their families seated all around us. Naturally, as always with him, a captain since his second season, he connected with the crowd. First, though, he hit yours truly with a playful jab, making note (and light) of my ‘announcer’s voice.’ Naturally, as always with Mayo, he did it smiling in a way that let me know: he was just busting my chops to break the ice.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to lend my voice to enough of his games. A torn pectoral muscle in the season’s sixth week – overshadowed by Tom Brady to Kenbrell Thompkins to beat the Saints – robbed Mayo of most of 2013. Further injury robbed him of most of the next year, too. 

Rather than “wallow in (his) pain,” as Mayo told Gautam Mukunda on the NASDAQ World Reimagined podcast in March 2021 (the listen is well worth your time), he worked to help the team win. Mayo dived into film study with Steve Belichick, then a coaching assistant, and involved himself on the sidelines during games. Long a ‘coach on the field’ as an inside linebacker making defensive calls, he was a de facto ‘player-coach’ for an eventual Super Bowl champ.

We would later learn, watching the collaboration of Mayo and the young Belichick running the Pats defense in recent years, that they became very close in Jerod’s final ‘playing’ days; just as one can learn by listening to him chat with Mukunda, or by reading or watching features like TheAthletic.com or Patriots.com profiles from last year, that he simultaneously formed relationships to help him excel outside football.

A younger Mayo – he’s still very young, at 37 – probed owner Robert Kraft for insights into the business world. He sipped wine and listened intently in intellectual circles and sought mentorships that prepared him for success as an angel investor and an executive rising to vice president of business development for Optum, a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Care.

Mayo also made time for television, shining in spots alongside Tom E. Curran, Phil Perry and the rest of the NBC Sports Boston crew. He easily could sit on a network set, like Tedy Bruschi or one of the McCourtys. Instead, he reclaimed a seat in the film room, becoming a coach. 

No sooner than Mayo’s return to One Patriot Place, he was seen as a future head coach, here and elsewhere, as evidenced by future interview opportunities. Even before last spring’s unique statement of ownership’s intentions to work out a deal to employ him long term, it was hard to envision the Krafts watching Mayo walk out the door to take over someone else’s team. 

On Thursday, Robert Kraft reminded us of something Jonathan Kraft has spoken about publicly in the past: how a relationship was formed with Bill Belichick in part over a mutual understanding of economics, the salary cap, value over cost, etcetera. They connected on a level transcending the game on the field. 

If you listen to Mayo and Mukunda; or hear him in the dot-com feature describe the formative influences of his mother and grandfather; or consider the intellectual and analytical thirst for information required to succeed in funding private startups; it’s easy to understand how Mayo and the Krafts would connect on a higher plane than a grid of Xs and Os. 

Then, take into account his leadership skills demonstrated as a rookie in a linebackers room populated by Bruschi and Junior Seau and Mike Vrabel. Mayo was the kid they dispatched to knock on Bill Belichick’s door to pitch their case for an occasional day off from padded practice. 

“If the worst thing someone can do to you is say, ‘no,’” Mayo’s mother, Denise, told her son, “go for it.”

Most — maybe two-thirds — of the time Belichick gave him a hard ‘no.’ But when the reply was ‘yes,’ Mayo was celebrated among his mates. A year later, they voted him captain. 

“The guys knew I cared about them more than I cared about myself,” he said to Mukunda of his youthful willingness to knock on that door, to go for it.

Sixteen-years later, the same feeling is consistent among the players Mayo’s coached. Mark Daniels of Masslive.com is one of many reporters who’ve written their testimonials in recent days.

No doubt, concerns, questions, criticism, all come with this hire. Not unlike the one Robert Kraft made in January of 2000.

After all, Mayo’s never been a ‘coordinator,’ let alone a head coach. Absolutely, Vrabel is available, and we know all too well how good he is from the games he’s coached against the Patriots (see 2018, at Nashville, or, worse, January of 2020, in Foxborough). 

You’re right, Jerod’s a defensive coach, hired as the organization closes in on a crossroads draft in need of identifying and developing its future quarterback. Okay, you consider him a disciple of Bill’s, asking, understandably: ‘Why move on from the best coach ever to then turn to one of his own?’ And how about: ‘Will he go outside current or past Pats circles for coaches? Can he? Who will take over player personnel?’

All valid. And all, I trust, the Krafts considered. 

“Jerod is an individual that, I think, has no ceiling for his ability to grow and how competent he is,” Robert Kraft said at last spring’s owners meetings. “We had the privilege of having him as a player, and I saw how intense he was, and his leadership skills that he had. And then I saw him leave us and go into private industry and learn the Xs and Os of business, and then come back to be a coach and do that with us.”

Of course, Mayo confronts an enormous learning curve. And faces major challenges trying to lead the Pats from 4-13, a third losing season in four years, back to expectations as a perennial Super Bowl contender. 

Even if you consider Mayo’s time making checks at the line of scrimmage and leading in the locker and meeting rooms as a player as some measure of coaching equivalent, there’s no downplaying the enormity of his new undertaking; he’s still very new at this coaching thing. 

But that doesn’t make him the wrong choice for this team, at this time. In Mayo, the Patriots have an exemplar of their best qualities of the past; who’s proven himself to be an out-of-box thinker and learner; who coaches, as he recently said, “out of love,” remaining “tough” while showing “warmth” and building “confidence”; who communicates and connects as a person in settings as diverse as the C-suite and team cafeteria; who has the character, intelligence and charisma to be both a constant and an agent for necessary change.

What’s more, if his past is a prelude, Mayo won’t be afraid of tackling that curve and those challenges cast in the hooded shadow hanging over the organization from the past 24 years; just as he wasn’t afraid, at 22, to knock on Bill’s door. 

Speaking of Bill, Mayo described Belichick to Mukunda as “a continuous learner” always “trying to evolve.” As if talking about himself.

Mayo’s about to learn a lot on a new job, arguably, the toughest in sports, eight years after he retired from playing, prompting the legend he now succeeds to praise him at the 2016 owners meetings.

“There have been very few players in my career that I’ve had the opportunity to coach that I’d say had more of an impact on the team than Jerod has from day one, which is unusual,” Belichick said. 

It’s day one of a new Patriots era, and an unusual person gets his shot to impact the team as its next head coach. I, for one, am excited to describe the days that follow – in my best announcer’s voice. 

Bob Socci recently completed his 11th season as the play-by-play broadcaster for the Patriots Radio Network on 98.5 The Sports Hub in Boston.