Cardinals’ voice Pasch in difficult spot

Most red-blooded American males would gladly trade
professions with play-by-play broadcaster Dave Pasch.

On Sundays in the fall, Pasch describes all the action of
Arizona Cardinals games.

On Saturdays, Pasch works for ESPN, along with
commentators Chris Spielman and Urban Meyer, broadcasting
one of the network’s premier college football games.

This week, you probably wouldn’t find too many volunteers
to take Pasch’s job.

Saturday, Pasch and company will be in State College,
Pennsylvania to call the pivotal Penn State-Nebraska Big
Ten tilt at Beaver Stadium. Of course, due to the recent
uncovering of allegations of sexual abuse by former Penn
State assistant coach Jerry Sandusky, the firing of head
coach Joe Paterno, university president Graham Spanier and
athletic director Tim Curley, the game has become
secondary on the national radar.

As a broadcaster, Pasch is faced with the challenge of
keeping the sordid mess that’s unfolded at Penn State in
balance with the actual description of the game.

When Pasch joined Doug and Wolf Thursday on Arizona Sports
620, Ron Wolfley asked him if this will be the most
difficult broadcast he’s ever done.

“I don’t think there’s any question, Wolf. Just looking
at that Grand Jury report, knowing that I had to read it
and really did not have a desire to read it. But you read
it and it just makes you sick to your stomach,” Pasch
said.

Despite the disgusting nature of the situation, and the
anticipated difficulty in the broadcast, Pasch remains
pretty clear on what his crew’s responsibilities will be
while on the air on Saturday.

“Our goal as a team, and we’ve talked about this is we
need to be fair to the game, and making sure that we
document the game, because there are people that are
watching for the game, but obviously first and foremost,
being aware. Being aware of the allegations and the
victims and the news—the developments of the week around
Coach Paterno and just the developments on campus,” he
said.

And Pasch acknowledged that those developments could
change at a moment’s notice.

“What happens with (Penn State assistant) Mike McQueary.
Where does he coach from, if he coaches at all? What does
the Governor do if he steps in and does anything? Is there
news from the NCAA? What if Coach Paterno shows up? What
if there’s a boycott? There’s still so many things that
can take place on game day, there’s only so much you can
prepare for.”

You can check out the Penn State-Nebraska game this
Saturday morning on ESPN. Kickoff is scheduled for just
after 10:00 a.m.

And you can hear Pasch’s call of the Cardinals-Eagles game
along with Ron Wolfley on Arizona Sports 620. Kickoff is
at 11:00 a.m.

Follow @Vincemarotta