Kentucky fans cheer, boo, shriek, grouch, boast, complain, grumble, applaud, shout, second-guess, roar and react to game action in many other ways.
This season has added murmur to the list … sort of.
Those attending Kentucky home games or watching on television might have noticed that the size of the crowd and the noise level generated in Rupp Arena seem slightly off kilter. That’s because they are.
In this school year of a coronavirus pandemic, the Southeastern Conference allows schools the option of adding artificial crowd sound at games.
“What it’s intended to be is just a crowd murmur,” said Herb Vincent, SEC associate commissioner for communications.
The SEC hoped that the adding of artificial crowd noise would add a familiar ambiance to games. It’s permitted in football, soccer, volleyball, basketball, baseball and softball.
John George, the public address announcer at Arkansas home games for 41 seasons and for the past 14 SEC Tournaments, applauded the move as a way to make game attendance “at least semi-enjoyable” for fans.
“In the world we’re in today, electronics are so prevalent,” he said. “And they do enhance the experience.”
There are rules.
For instance, the murmur must be non-partisan.
“It’s not meant to favor one team over another,” Vincent said. “You can’t elevate the sound when this team is doing this or this team is doing that.
“The crowd that is there is the one that adds to the ambiance when there’s a slam dunk or a big momentum shift. That’s the responsibility of the live crowd.”
The SEC asked Arkansas to tone down the murmur at its football games.
“The SEC was alerted by the other team that they thought it was too loud,” said George, who also does the public address announcements in football. “So we were asked to keep it at an X-decibels level.”
Booing of a referee’s call is not permitted.
The artificial murmur has to be at least 60 decibels and no more than 70. According to the IAC Acoustics website, 60 decibels is equivalent to conversation at a restaurant or hearing an air conditioning unit from 100 feet away. The noise of a vacuum cleaner is about 70 decibels.
Lexington Center Corp., estimated the typical crowd noise in Rupp Arena for UK games in a pre-pandemic season reaching about 100 decibels. According to Purdue University, that is the equivalent of a Boeing 707 or DC-8 one nautical mile before landing.
Kentucky has used the artificial crowd noise in at least three sports: football, plus men’s and women’s basketball
Nathan Schwake, associate AD for marketing and licensing, said the murmur is turned on at tip-off of games in Rupp Arena and stays on except during timeouts.
When asked the origin of the crowd noise used, Schwake said, “It’s not our facility. It’s just a track of some arena somewhere. It just loops.”
Pat Lowry, a coordinating producer for ESPN and the SEC Network, said the artificial crowd noise was not something television requested. But TV — and tender ears — can benefit.
“It also helps muffle some of the players’ or coaches’ sounds that you don’t necessarily want to go out on national TV,” she said.
Missing in action
Of course, The Associated Press Top 25 poll this past week did not include Kentucky, Duke, Kansas, North Carolina or UCLA. This was the first time since 1961 that none of this version of a Power Five were in the AP poll.
Here’s another oddity: The AP poll last week included only three schools that have won a national championship in the last 57 years. The three are No. 3 Michigan, No. 5 Villanova and No. 9 Virginia.
Of the 81 national championships in the books, 71 of them were won by programs whose teams were unranked this past week.
Masked men
Wearing a mask in public settings is recommended during the coronavirus pandemic. But it gets complicated for public address announcers who must communicate clearly with fans attending games, plus coaches and players.
Patrick Whitmer, the announcer at Kentucky home games, wrote in a text message, “I have to wear a mask. … and I wear glasses. So they’re constantly fogging up on me!”
Dan Borne (pronounced Bor-NAY) has been the LSU basketball public address announcer for 33 years. He texted that his mask wearing is evolving.
“Clearly, during the run of the game, I have to be unmasked because I have to call out the names of players who did this and that,” he wrote.
Borne said he got a new mask on Monday “that I think would permit me to stay masked and to announce at the same time.”
Borne wrote that he would experiment with the new mask at an LSU women’s game later in the week.
Arkansas public address announcer John George also does those duties at the SEC Tournament. He said he tries to seek a middle ground. He worked his first game this season without a mask.
“Wear a mask the rest of the games,” he texted. “I do pull it down because people don’t understand” (the call).
Condolences
Condolences to the family of Tom Konchalski, who evaluated youth basketball players for decades. He died Monday at age 74.
Craig Robinson, the executive director of the National Association of Basketball Coaches, issued a statement.
“It would be difficult to find a college basketball coach whose life wasn’t impacted by Tom Konchalski,” Robinson said. “Tom was one of the foremost experts on high school basketball and leaves behind a lifetime of positive influences on coaches, athletes and the game itself.
“He was not only a trusted source of information and advice for coaches, but a dear friend.”
If you’ll pardon a personal aside, I would speak to Konchalski on occasion when stories were related to recruiting.
When Rick Pitino was Kentucky coach, one of his first signees was Carlos Toomer. This surprised another recruiting analyst, Bob Gibbons, who — if I remember correctly — said he was flabbergasted by the signing. In the story, I referred to Gibbons as a recruiting “guru.”
This candid assessment of the Toomer commitment angered Pitino, who pointed out that Gibbons was not the recruiting “guru” that he consulted.
This prompted the obvious follow-up question: who was the guru he consulted?
Tom Konchalski, Pitino said.
Konchalski grew up in Queens, N.Y., and was a magna cum laude graduate of Fordham.
Small world
LSU public address announcer Dan Borne recalled working a preseason exhibition game against a team from the then Soviet Union in 1989. Since he could not speak Russian, he called the LSU languages department to see if they could recommend a professor or student who could help him at the game.
By chance, there was a graduate student from the Soviet Union attending LSU. She spoke Russian and English. She came to the game and sat next to Borne.
Before the tip-off, the coach of the Soviet team, Vladimir Kondrashin, came to the scorer’s table. Borne introduced him to his Russian-speaking helper.
“They started talking in Russian back and forth,” Borne said. “Then he turned to me and said, ‘I coached her father in the 1972 Olympics.’”
Of course, the famous (or infamous, if you prefer) gold medal game that year saw the United States lose 51-50 when the referees allowed the Soviet team three chances to inbound the ball and score on a last-second shot.
Borne had a question for his assistant from LSU’s languages department: “Why didn’t you tell me that?”
To which, she replied, “I was afraid to tell you that.”
Recalling this memory, Borne said, “Can you get a smaller world than that? That’s one of those crazy things that life throws at you.”
Happy birthday
To Leroy Byrd. He turned 58 on Thursday. … To Andy Dumstorf. The student worker in UK’s athletics department fired because he was a Louisville fan turned 57 on Thursday. … To Josh Harrellson. He turned 32 on Friday. … To Hall of Famer Bill Russell. He turned 87 on Friday. … To Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski. He turned 74 on Saturday. … To Ray Edelman. He turns 69 on Sunday (today). … To Tod Lanter. He turns 30 on Monday. … To Al Robinson. He turns 82 on Wednesday.