To hear Kevin Harlan talk about talking, you’d think it was an athletic exercise.
That’s not meant pejoratively. Harlan will broadcast four basketball games Friday in the first round of the men’s NCAA Tournament. That will give his booming baritone quite a workout, and he needs to be ready.
“There are a lot of parallels to what an athlete goes through,” Harlan said. “Good night sleep, a lot of hydration, warmup. Making sure that your lungs have got a lot of air, making sure you take those deep breaths. Because in play-by-play, you have a tendency to not take those big gulps of air and you talk a lot from just your throat, and that puts a lot of strain on your vocal cords.”
Harlan likened it to opera singers who never grimace belting out a song because they’re adept at getting air back in their lungs. In 43 years in broadcasting, he has studied their mechanics to make his voice reflect qualities of theirs.
“The delivery is the No. 1 thing in our business,” Harlan said. “If your delivery is wrong, everything will go sideways.”
Harlan’s success rate is as good as it gets, and Illini fans will be the beneficiaries when he calls Illinois’ game against Xavier in Milwaukee (8:45 p.m., CBS 2, 890-AM). Harlan, who began calling the tournament for CBS in 1999, will be joined by analysts Dan Bonner and Stan Van Gundy for the third consecutive year.
The trio has become a favorite of viewers. Though a three-person broadcast can be tricky in terms of sharing the mic, Harlan sees a specific role for each. He handles the basics, and Bonner and Van Gundy, with whom Harlan calls NBA games for TNT, bring their own bent on analysis.
“Both veer into different areas of interest,” Harlan said. “Dan has done the tournament for close to 40 years. He has a great wealth of knowledge and history of the tournament. Stan angles a lot of his comments as a former coach and what he would do in situations. And it just works. It has been a very nice partnership with those guys.”
Harlan was on his flight home Sunday to Kansas City after calling the Atlantic 10 Tournament final when he learned he would be in Milwaukee for the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament. It’s a special place for Harlan, who was born in suburban Wauwatosa and whose father, Bob, was the sports-information director for Marquette coach Al McGuire in 1964-65.
Bob and McGuire developed a lasting friendship. After Bob joined the Packers in 1971 on his way to becoming the team’s president and CEO, Kevin fondly remembers McGuire driving his Harley Davidson from Milwaukee to visit the Packers’ training camp. McGuire later became a beloved analyst, and his penultimate broadcast was with Kevin in 2000 on CBS.
Harlan joined CBS in 1998, but he has been with TNT the longest, starting in 1996. That run will end after this season, TNT’s last carrying the NBA. Next season, NBC and Amazon’s Prime Video will join ESPN as the league’s broadcast partners.
“Even now when I put on that TNT headset, I’m stunned that we’re all going through this. My heart is broken,” said Harlan, 64. “I’ve had the honor of calling more NBA games for TNT than anybody else. They’ve had it for 40 years, and I’ve been there for 30. So it’s very emotional, it really is.”
Harlan said he’s still figuring out what he’ll do next NBA season, though he reportedly is close to joining Prime Video. His focus now is on the NCAA Tournament, where he thinks the Illini could make a run, having called games in which they beat Ohio State and Michigan.
“They just need to stay whole. They’re sick, and then they’re injured, and they’re sick again,” Harlan said. “That’s been the problem. They’ve been hit it seems about as hard as any major program in the country with that. They just need to stay healthy, and if they can just do that, I think they’ve got a lot ahead of them, I really do.”
Maybe the Illini will give Harlan the chance to make a memorable call. This much is certain: He’ll have his voice ready, even though the game will be his fourth of the day.
“You measure yourself more than normal through the course of the game,” Harlan said, “saving for whatever may be needed at the end of the game when you’ve really got to let it rip.”
Remote patrol
The Stars’ home opener Sunday against Houston will air at 2 p.m. on Fox Chicago Plus (Channel 50). Josh Eastern will call the game with former U.S. women’s national team goalie Jill Loyden. Lou Canellis and Tina Nguyen will host the pregame show at 1:30. Cassie Carlson will handle play-by-play for Fox Chicago’s remaining seven games.
• Jeff Meller will replace Connor McKnight as host of White Sox pregame and postgame shows, as well as “White Sox Weekly,” on ESPN 1000. McKnight joined Sox TV broadcasts on Chicago Sports Network. Meller has been a producer and host at the station for 20 years.