Courtesy ACCSports.com

(March 12, 2009) Cory Alexander knows how physically and mentally taxing the ACC Tournament can be, having played in two for Virginia during the mid-1990s. But even that experience won’t adequately prepare him for the task he’s being asked to perform at this year’s event. A rookie color analyst for the Cavaliers Radio Network, Alexander and his play-by-play partner Dave Koehn will be broadcasting all 11 games through four grueling days of basketball this weekend at the Georgia Dome. “I’m not sure what that’s going to be like,” said the former UVa. point guard, who earned second-team all-tournament honors his sophomore season. “At the same time, I can’t wait to find out.” If Alexander is interested in getting some hints about the stamina, vocal control and preparation it takes to do what amounts to 27½ solid hours of talking, he’s got plenty of resources into which he can tap. Because while many school networks have abandoned the practice of calling the entire tournament – rather than concentrating solely on games involving their teams – there are still three holdouts that still doing. Between them, North Carolina’s Woody Durham, N.C. State’s Gary Hahn and Durham’s son Wes of Georgia Tech had almost as many years of on-the-air experience as the ACC Tournament has been in existence. And believe it or not, despite the inherent difficulties it presents, their annual March marathon is something they all look forward to doing. “Why wouldn’t you enjoy doing it?” said Woody Durham, the Tar Heels’ distinctive voice since 1971. “If you’re a basketball fan, this is the best time of the year.” That having been said, announcing the entire ACC Tournament isn’t what it once was when the league consisted of eight or nine teams. Since the recent expansion that added Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College, the tournament has added an extra full day to the already crowded schedule. The change made it nearly impossible for even the most dedicated, strong-throated announcer to go wire-to-wire. Woody Durham, for instance, has turned some of the play-by-play duties over to studio host Jones Angell. Each will do one two-game session on Thursday and Friday, before Durham takes back over for good to do the semifinals and finals. But even though Woody won’t be handing the play-by-play chores for four of the early games, it’s not like he’ll be resting his voice. He’ll still be behind the microphone, offering his commentary and thoughts along with regular color analyst Eric Montross. The same is true with Hahn, who will split the Thursday sessions with Dave Shore of Raleigh radio station 99.9 The Fan. “Since the expansion, it’s just become too much for one man to do,” Hahn said. That reality has led many networks that once aired all the games to either stop the practice or at least change the way they do it. Among them is Duke. The advent of satellite radio, which makes each team’s broadcast available to subscribers from coast-to-coast, has also changed the dynamic. “Of our 28 stations, we found that only three of them were carrying the entire tournament anymore, so it wasn’t worth it financially or with all the effort that had to go into getting ready for all those games,” veteran Blue Devils play-by-play man Bob Harris said. “Really, I wanted to continue. But then after I thought about it and sat there on that first Thursday and watched all four those games, I started thinking ‘You know, I’m glad I didn’t have to do all this.’” So then, why do some continue to do it? “It’s tradition, I guess, more than anything else,” Woody Durham said. “Plus, we think people are interested in those first couple of days, and because they’re held during the week, not everyone can get in front of a television set. We think that’s a way of helping the audience out, too.” To ensure that his vocal chords still have something left to make it through to Sunday’s final game, Durham keeps a thermos of his favorite sugar-free instant cider most people use as a sore-throat remedy within an arm’s reach. He also goes through a lot of Chap Stick, “because if you don’t your lips will be chapped come Monday morning.” Although Hahn prefers simple H20 any kind of flavored concoctions, the theory remains the same. Hydrate. Hydrate. Hydrate. But even that doesn’t always work, as Hahn learned at his first ACC Tournament with the Wolfpack, in 1990. “I got some sort of bug and it settled in my vocal chords,” Hahn recalled, painfully. “I made it through all four games that Friday, but by the time I got to the 9:30 game, I didn’t have much left. “I was hoping that I’d get up the next morning and my voice would be there. When it wasn’t, I had to give way to my partner at the time, Gary Dornberg, and fortunately he had the skills to get through the rest of the tournament. That wasn’t a real good way to start out.” Hahn’s experience should serve as a lesson for a rookie like Virginia’s Alexander as he prepares for his first ACC Tournament as an announcer. All he has to do is remember not to get sick, to pace himself and above all, just keep taking.