Ex-Vermont Coach Has Just The Job He Never Wanted

(From The USA Today -- By Michael Hiestand)

TOM BRENNAN says he "didn't stop coaching to go into TV." Which would make sense, since coaching a team called the Catamounts for 19 years wouldn't seem like the obvious entree to a big-time TV job.

But after leading his Vermont team into the NCAA MEN'S TOURNAMENT the last three years -- the only Catamounts appearances in the event ever -- Brennan and his team became media darlings.

Says Brennan -- "I got totally overexposed and, at that point, ESPN said they wanted to talk to me."

NORBY WILLIAMSON, an ESPN Executive Vice President, says with Brennan "his press conferences were pretty much his auditions. We'd watch him. He was phenomenal!"

Especially when he did those elaborate shadow puppets from the podium.

Now Brennan is cautiously optimistic about joining the rarefied circles of TV sports -- "There are a thousand guys who could do this job. I just hope I'm one of them."

If not, maybe nobody will notice.

While Brennan is expected to get plenty of prominent air time when he makes his debut as an ESPN/ESPN2 studio analyst December 7th, he'll be part of a cast of thousands. Actually, it will only seem like thousands.

ESPN, and its various outlets such as ESPN2 and ESPNU, will use more than 50 on-air announcers this season as it carries more than 450 college men's games -- UP from about 325 last season. The tonnage on ESPN platforms already has begun --after warming up with a total of 17 games this week, it shifts into second gear with 29 games next week.

Despite the waves of talking heads that ESPN deploys, Brennan is just one of two rookies. The other is HUBERT DAVIS, who went to North Carolina and played 12 NBA seasons before retiring in 2004. Like Brennan, Davis says he didn't retire to go into TV. As a player, he says, "I never really thought about (TV work). Not at all."

Still, Davis did some NBA game radio calls for the Dallas Mavericks and New York Knicks. This season he'll be an ESPN/ESPN2 studio analyst as well as call Western Athletic and West Coast conference games Monday nights. That should help him avoid an admitted conflict-of-interest -- "They told me not to say 'we' when I'm talking about North Carolina. But I should get a grace period on that."

Brennan got no such mandates when ESPN recently gathered its basketball crew at a Connecticut casino for its preseason briefing.

"I didn't find one thing interesting," he says. "Mostly it was talking about the ESPN brand, like a pep rally."
[And HE has a job in TV? Sigh...]

Doesn't find a pep rally for the ESPN brand to be interesting?

So much for ESPN's claims that its standard electroshock therapy for new employees indoctrinates anyone into believing even that ESPN ZONES have the world's greatest fries.

But then Brennan, whose popular Vermont radio show is in its 14th season, sounds like he might get through a day without TV pancake makeup -- "Four or five years of this would be great. But it's not like I got fired or want another job. I don't feel any pressure."

Except from those 999 other guys.