When non-runners find out what I do for a living, they invariably ask, “You broadcast and announce running events? What do you say? They’re just running.”

And I always reply, “What do baseball announcers say? They’re just standing there!”

Strip any sport of its context, strategy, and human drama, and it can sound absurd. For a time, I broadcast the North American Sumo Wrestling Championships on ESPN. But it was only after I learned the sport’s 82 recognized winning techniques, or kimarite, that it made any sense beyond two fellas of immense girth slamming into one another in a 15-foot circle wearing reinforced thongs —mawashi, if you insist—while acting quite courtly pre- and post-slam.

Distance racing can confound in much the same way—minus the thongs. It is not merely people putting one foot in front of the other. It is tactical warfare played out over distance and time: surge strategy, drafting, psychological breaking points, and raw human vulnerability exposed on tracks and roads.

My job has never been simply to describe the motion. It has been to illuminate the mechanics, the strategy, and the psychology behind it.

I studied to be a teacher. In the spring of 1973, following Nixon’s historic opening to China in February the year before, I helped write a Chinese-history curriculum for high-school sophomores in suburban St. Louis.

When I left the classroom in St. Louis and moved to Boston in 1974—before entering the broadcast booth in 1975—I only changed the venue and the subject.

The habits I learned in education classes—setting objectives, asking useful questions, providing context, and giving students a way into unfamiliar material—became the foundation of how I explained running. I still carry those lessons to every broadcast: introducing athletes through their biographies, laying out an event’s history, and showing how runners who have battled one another before may collide again under pressure.

By the end of the race, the audience doesn’t just know who crossed the tape first. I hope they have gained a working understanding of the tactics, the psychological burdens, and the emotional weight of the effort.

I do not just call the play-by-play.

I like to think I teach competition.

This coming week, I’ll be in Falmouth, Massachusetts, for the 54th running of the ASICS Falmouth Road Race. On Friday evening, I’ll be at Falmouth High School for the Falmouth Track Festival and its featured high school and professional miles; on Sunday morning, I’ll be on the microphone for the seven-mile road race itself.

On both occasions, I’ll bring my teaching methods to the microphone. And I’ll be back here throughout race week with more on the athletes, the history, and the storylines worth watching.

For those who will be in Falmouth, I hope my announcing colleagues and I can offer not just information, but understanding. For those running, best of luck.

We’ll be paying close attention, red pencils at the ready.

END