On Saturday, the Marist Red Foxes handled the Detroit-Mercy Titans 15-11 at beautiful Tenney Stadium in Poughkeepsie, NY.
High above in the booth, Eric Bickel was making his NCAA broadcasting debut as the official color commentator for Marist men's lacrosse on ESPN+.
"You could definitely tell that Eric knows more about the Red Foxes than Detroit-Mercy," noted producer Matt Valdez as The Sports Junkies reviewed highlights from the broadcast Monday morning on 106.7 The Fan.
"Oh yeah. I studied Detroit-Mercy all week and it all went right out my head," Bickel said. "Like as soon as the game started and just anxiety, I forgot it all. I couldn't recall it."
"I would highly recommend not making your color commentary debut on ESPN's platform," he said. "It's very stressful."
"That's a big platform," Cakes nudged.
Fortunately, because it was broadcast on ESPN+, Junkies listeners were able to watch along during Bickel's debut.
"I'm used to doing radio. TV's a joke because we just talk," Bickel explained. "So, they're running replays, and the producers are all talking and it's distracting."
"They're talking in your ear," Jason Bishop said.
"Yeah, but mostly to [my broadcast partner]," Bickel continued. "But I hear it all. They're saying stuff. To me it's just like 'blah blah blah.' But they were running replays a few times that I think I was unaware of in the first half, so I obviously wasn't synced up with that. But in the second half, I feel like I nailed the replays."
"Well look, we knew you were gonna be nervous," Bishop said. "It's your first game. First half of your first game, you were gonna sound a little shaky. But I'm sure you improved."
Bickel's next call comes Saturday as Marist looks to defend its home turf for the second straight week against Quinnipiac.
"Another game this weekend against Quinnipiac," Bickel informed. "I don't think I'm gonna study as much on Quinnipiac as I did last time. I'll watch the games and take a few notes. But I took all of these notes, and then when the game started, I kind of choked. For them, for Detroit-Mercy. Because it was just, it was too much."
"You didn't drop their hometowns?" Bishop asked.
"That's what I decided to do, Jason," Bickel said, "is do like biographical stuff. You know, Yorktown's finest. Or, from Buffalo. Add a little color that way instead of talking about like the backside seal and the two-slide or whatever, you know what I mean?
"And the strengths and weaknesses," Bishop said. "Yeah, I gotcha."
"I can do strengths and weaknesses of the guys," Bickel said. "But some of the Xs and Os stuff, I'm not that good at."
"A lot of dead air," Valdez remarked after playing one of Bickel's calls over a video replay.
"Well you gotta remember, it's not radio," Bickel said. "You gotta remember it's TV, it's streamed video, so you can see the story unfold. You don't have to fill in every gap."
"By the way," Valdez said. "I noticed that's Eric's kind of verbal crutch, when he's doing the color commentation, is that he always has to give where the player's from."
"Yeah, I decided that was going to be my approach, was bio. I was gonna stick to biographical," Bickel said. "Dude, you don't understand. I don't know what I'm doing! I'm a complete novice!"
"I texted Pete [Medhurst] a few questions. I had a couple guys give me a few sort of suggestions," he said. "But I mean, you want to talk about flying blind? I mean Lurch had more experience at Salisbury!"
"John Smith likes... Netflix," Valdez joaned.
All joaning aside, it's admirable what Bickel's doing, driving a hundred hours each weekend to take a leap clearly outside of his comfort zone, after finding a loophole that would allow him to still be able to watch his son, Stephen, play. That's a caring dad right there.
