Dateline Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The Deer District. Party central. The celebration following the Milwaukee Bucks winning the NBA Championship Tuesday night reminded me of one of the reasons I got into sportscasting in the first place.
Bill Pucko, center, in a promotional ad for ‘R News Sports’, with John DiTullio and Mike Hedeen – date unknown
Sports can be pretty spectacular. Where else can an adult react to an outcome with complete abandon. Overwhelming joy. You’re supposed to say, “at the birth of your child.” But when was the last time you saw a new parent simultaneously scream at the top of their lungs, burst into tears and douse the obstetrician in champagne? I didn’t think so. It’s just different.
Bill Pucko reporting on location from the University of Rochester, for the College Sports Beat , November 10, 2016
My own athletic history lacks relevance here. So, I had to find second hand satisfaction in a US Open Cup Soccer Championship in Columbus, Ohio… and an Amerks Calder Cup Hockey crown won in Portland, Maine. I saw two no-hitters at Frontier Field. One for. One against. And there have been countless celebrations surrounding high school and collegiate victories.
Bill Pucko interviewing Aquinas Boys basketball player Earnest Edwards, with cameraman Jeff Baron, for the High School Sports Beat, January 30, 2016 (photo by Joe Bradt)
But my attachment to all of these events is both peripheral and fleeting. How does it feel to be in the middle of that celebration? I will never really know.
Bill Pucko reading a script for a voice-over at Rochester Community Television (RCTV) – December 19, 2013 (Photo by Jeff Baron)
Brian Mazurowski and Bill Pucko, on the set of the High School Sports Beat – November 7, 2012
Bill Pucko has spent over three decades as a broadcast journalist working in television, radio and print. He was the featured sportscaster on Rochester’s YYN and WHEC-TV, awarded the Rochester Press and Radio Club’s Sportscaster of the Year Award three times and inducted onto the Frontier Field Walk of Fame in 2006.
Bill is a co-founder of Classy Wolf Media, a television and video production company currently syndicating two weekly sports programs, The High School Sports Beat and The Press Box, on WHAM-TV and FOX Rochester.
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