Bring in the Funk

By: Jerome Cusson

The Chicago Bulls have already made some waves, but it’s not in the hiring of a new coach. Tom Dore and Wayne Larivee, who have been calling Bulls’ games since I can remember, will not be back for the 2009 campaign. Instead, the Bulls have seen fit to let both of the go and replace them with Neil Funk.

I don’t think Funk is a bad broadcaster, but it seems to me his style of broadcasting suits him for radio. Also, his rapport with Bill Wennington was far better this season then in years’ past. Now he has to shift over to television and put up with Stacey King.

It’s not that I don’t like King. Okay, I do. How am I supposed to take an analyst seriously when he once started a game, played some 25 minutes, and grabbed one rebound? I don’t think he’s a very good broadcaster and his presence is a real detriment these last couple of years. I realize that Johnny “Red” Kerr is getting up in age and is probably not suited to be a part of thr game broadcaster anymore, but King is a terrible replacement.

The whole dumping of Larivee and Dore just reeks of cost-cutting by the Bulls, WGN, and Comcast. If you want to have one broadcaster doing all the games, that’s fine. But don’t try to pass this move off as something good.

The state of broadcasting is very poor in Chicago. Hawk and D.J. are atrocious and make Sox games almost unwatchable. Len Kasper and Bob Brenly are much better from when they first started but still remain quite bland. Ed Farmer and Steve Stone are okay on Sox radio, but they don’t have a great deal of chemistry. Pat Hughes is about as good a play-by-play man as you could in MLB, but he almost has to do the work of two men considering that Ron Santo doesn’t necessarily broadcast but cheerleads. But hey, I’m not gonna be the one to fire Santo. I have far too much respect for him as a person to do that.

A team like the Bulls that has question marks all over the place can now add the actual broadcasts as a question to be answered.

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Jerome Cusson is a proud graduate of Columbia College Chicago. Currently, he is a freelance writer and a contributer to such websites as The Cool Kids' Table and giveawaytheending.com. Check out his NSR blog as well.

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