{"id":73238,"date":"2013-02-25T09:41:11","date_gmt":"2013-02-25T14:41:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=73238"},"modified":"2013-03-01T08:35:59","modified_gmt":"2013-03-01T13:35:59","slug":"voice-of-huskies-home-court-has-best-seat-in-the-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2013\/02\/voice-of-huskies-home-court-has-best-seat-in-the-house\/","title":{"rendered":"Voice of Huskies’ Home Court Has Best Seat in the House"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Public<\/a>
Public address announcer John Tuite calls out the names of players during the Senior Night ceremony at the start of the women’s basketball game against Seton Hall at Gampel Pavilion on Feb. 23. (Peter Morenus\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The shrill tweet of the referee\u2019s whistle sounds sharply above the crowd noise at Gampel Pavilion during a women\u2019s basketball game. Sitting at the scorer\u2019s table at center court between the team benches, public address announcer John Tuite looks toward the official\u2019s hands to see which fingers indicate the number of the player who committed the foul before speaking into the microphone in front of him.<\/p>\n

\u201cFoul on No. 14, Bria Hartley. First personal; first team foul. Time out on the floor,\u201d Tuite says, drawing a groan from the crowd, before continuing on to read a promotional announcement.<\/p>\n

Tuite\u2019s baritone is familiar to fans of UConn basketball and football at home games at Gampel Pavilion, the XL Center in Hartford, and Rentschler Field in East Hartford. A native of Storrs, he is also a veteran radio broadcaster for listeners of WILI in Willimantic, where he is known on the FM band as \u201cNewsman John\u201d on the Pete Nichols\u2019 morning program and on the station\u2019s AM side as the host of the \u201cVinyl Frontier.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got the best seat in the place,\u201d says Tuite, who has been the Huskies\u2019 home voice on and off since the 1990s and the regular PA announcer for football and basketball for the past five years. \u201cI\u2019m completely spoiled that I get to see the games from this vantage point.\u201d<\/p>\n

A career that’s grown with the program<\/strong><\/p>\n

A graduate of Morehead State University in Kentucky, Tuite was a contemporary of former New York Giants quarterback Phil Simms, and started doing radio and television broadcasts of high school basketball and football in the Bluegrass State.<\/p>\n

Following graduation in 1980, Tuite returned to Connecticut and became a community volunteer at WHUS, the UConn student station, filling in at times when students were not available for games. He started doing men\u2019s soccer games as an analyst, and eventually added play-by-play for women\u2019s soccer and women\u2019s basketball games to his repertoire. He continues to broadcast men\u2019s soccer games, working with student broadcasters.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was very lucky for me,\u201d he says. \u201cWho knew when Jim Calhoun and Geno Auriemma were hired there would be this mass growth in UConn sports? When I first got involved in field hockey, women\u2019s soccer and men\u2019s soccer made it three for three in Final Fours. There was a lot of sentiment on campus that was our niche. We couldn\u2019t beat the St. John\u2019s, Georgetowns, and Villanovas of the world in basketball.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tuite arrives early on the day of a game to review the dozen or so pages of promotional messages he will read during the course of a game and to prepare the starting lineups he will announce following the National Anthem. He writes out the starting lineups by hand, saying it helps to commit the information to his memory, particularly pronunciations of players from the visiting team. He prefers to speak with the sports information staff from the visiting team or an assistant coach in order to hear the proper way to say a player\u2019s name.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like to hear it from a human voice because the phonetic spellings [on the media sheets] can be ambiguous or inaccurate compared to what people hear from the human ear,\u201d he says. \u201cSometimes I talk with an assistant coach or trainer, find out if there is a nickname they prefer which is easier, such as Jon instead of Jonathan or Neek instead of Shaneeka.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tuite says when he introduces the starting lineups for basketball he brings out the student-athletes by seniority.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always do it by seniority, youngest to the oldest, regardless of whether someone is a star attraction. It\u2019s an honor that should be bestowed on somebody who\u2019s put in the blood sweat and tears of the practice and academics,\u201d he says. \u201cFor example if Caroline Doty [\u201913 (CLAS)] starts, she gets priority over Kelly Faris [\u201913 (CLAS)] as a senior, because she\u2019s a redshirt senior [a fifth-year player].\u201d<\/p>\n

Challenges of the job<\/strong><\/p>\n

During a basketball game, Tuite says it can be difficult to see everything from his position, even though it is in the middle of the court. Players and officials run by or can block his view when the whistle blows.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeeing the foot on the floor for a three-point play, the view is better from the stands. Certain circumstances, such as a double foul, and keeping track of who gets the ball, it\u2019s not always clear,\u201d he says, noting that officials at times will signal the number of the player committing as they see it, not reversing the number on their hands for the scorer\u2019s table to see correctly, even though the official is verbally giving the number.<\/p>\n

Tuite says he tries to maintain an even tone in announcing who scored during a game, providing excitement when the game dictates a more enthusiastic call of the play.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important to recognize the situation and what\u2019s appropriate,\u201d he says. \u201cTrying to generate fake excitement never works. At the same time, I\u2019d be a bad PA announcer if I was a monotone for the home team. With some NBA announcers it\u2019s ultra-annoying and disingenuous if the home team is down by 15 and you call with fake enthusiasm or long drawn out delivery. Everybody can recognize it for what it is. I try to approach it like an umpire in baseball. You want to be as invisible as possible. There\u2019s a big difference in how the umpire at first calls a routine out versus a play at the plate, when there\u2019s a great collision for a safe call.\u201d<\/p>\n

Announcing at Rentschler Field provides not only a different perspective \u2013 Tuite sits high above the field on the right side of the fifth floor press box \u2013 but other challenges. A spotter assists him with identifying who carries the ball or makes a tackle, and there are more promotional marketing messages. There is also the on-field referee microphone for penalty announcements.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Sometimes] I\u2019m getting a word in my headphone about doing an announcement and I have to cut a sentence short when I hear that click on the referee\u2019s mic. You get a feel for it after a while,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s also different from what it was 15 years ago, now tossing to the video screen for the play of the game. It helps the experience of a fan. It shouldn\u2019t be an inferior experience compared to watching it at home. Replays are missing if you don\u2019t include them in today\u2019s world.\u201d<\/p>\n

As to a memorable incident during a game, Tuite says it was a 1999 women\u2019s game against UCLA at Gampel Pavilion. Following a missed free throw by the UCLA player, Swin Cash \u201902 (CLAS) grabbed the rebound and then shot the ball into the UCLA basket instead of holding on to the ball or passing it off to a teammate. The players and coaches on the UConn bench could only laugh as Cash ran down the court shaking her head and then stopped to put a hand over her face.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said to myself, I\u2019m not going to say anything here,\u201d he says. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of times those are good things to live by.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Public address announcer John Tuite tells the crowd at football and basketball games what is happening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":73242,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[55],"class_list":["post-73238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-11 12:08:57","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73238"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73250,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73238\/revisions\/73250"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/73242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73238"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=73238"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=73238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}