Saying goodbye
White’s brief run as announcer over, but he loves city
Between NBC’s coverage of the Premier League and Apple TV’s Emmy-nominated “Ted Lasso,” it’s difficult not to hear Arlo White’s voice on soccer coverage — real or fictional.
The next time you hear the Leicester, England, native on a broadcast will be Wednesday, when the U.S. women’s national team plays Sweden in the group stage at the Tokyo Olympics.
He’ll do so having finished his four-match stint as the Fire’s lead play-by-play announcer, a gig that was delayed more than a year by COVID-19.
So to say it was a long time coming for White — whose adoration for all things Chicago is pretty well-documented — is an understatement.
“I came into it very excited and with high expectations, and the trip has delivered — and then some,” he said.
White’s stay in Chicago was only a few weeks — his first match was June 19 and last was July 3 — but his trip was a busy one.
He watched Euro matches at North Side soccer pubs The Globe and A.J. Hudson’s, took in a Cubs game against the Cleveland Indians at Wrigley Field (“It’s a very, very special place to me”) and went to a plethora of restaurants, including Gibsons, Carmine’s, Ciccio Mio and Tavern on Rush.
There was even room for a bag of Vitner’s cheese popcorn.
“Lockdown already hadn’t been kind, and now after three weeks in Chicago, it’s a losing cause,” White joked. “I think I’m going to have to replace my entire wardrobe.”
White calls about 70 Premier League matches a season for NBC, a workload that has been expanded this year by the Olympics. But instead of enjoying the summer off, White said he couldn’t wait to come to Chicago for the additional Fire work on WGN-9.
“I think the lockdown taught us all a lot and we all have to get through it in our own way, and I didn’t enjoy not working,” he said. “You’re sitting there, you have no idea when things are going to be relaxed again and you have this idea of where you’d go and what you’re going to do. And already knowing that the Fire and I had a relationship just made it more exciting, the prospect to do some traveling, to get out there.
“And I just love spending time in the city. I’m very comfortable here. I feel like it’s absolutely a second home.”
Of course, working for a team versus taking a more neutral approach covering the Premier League enabled White to let his hair down a bit.
Case in point: When Miguel Navarro forced a Philadelphia Union own goal, which ended the Fire’s three-match goal drought, White couldn’t help but yell, “Finally!” on his call.
“The difference is subtle, but it’s significant,” he said. “You are essentially working for the team.
Now you can’t have rose-tinted glasses about absolutely everything, but there are certain ways of framing situations that might be slightly different.”
One perk of working for the Fire was the ability to have multiple sitdowns with coach Raphael Wicky to gain insight into team tactics, something White said doesn’t happen in England.
But even without getting that inside information, White already has called enough soccer through the years to know the ins and outs, including calling games for the Seattle Sounders and being NBC’s soccer voice for the 2012 and 2016 Olympics.
That’s in contrast to the 2004 Games in Athens, during which White, then working for BBC Radio, was tasked with calling archery and was “furiously going through the handbook” the morning of the event.
Said White: “It was like, he bends the string, pulls the string back, it is kind of on his nose and you hear a boing-yoing-yoing-yoing, and it’s in the air and then you hear the thud as it hits the board.
“And for some reason it works. I don’t know how. It was great fun, (but) what a challenge to do.”
White’s time with the Fire might be over for this season — both parties are hoping for more games next season — but fans still can hear him on the team’s newly launched podcast “The Intercontinental Football Show,” cohosted with Tyler Terens, who does playby-play for the bulk of the Fire schedule.
White will be on site in Tokyo with Julie Foudy and Marisa Pilla, but because of COVID-19 protocols he won’t have quite the same freedom to explore the Japanese capital as he did in Chicago.
Or at Soldier Field, another high White cited about his Chicago jaunt. An avid Bears fan, White has been at the historic venue for a Monday night game against the Green Bay Packers and a Sunday night game against the Minnesota Vikings, plus two Bears-Packers games at Lambeau Field.
It doesn’t hurt that Soldier Field’s spacious commentary box is larger than any in the Premier League “by about 10-fold.”
“We don’t have booths in the UK,” White said. “All the commentators, we’re all outside.
“Sometimes some of the more modern commentary areas are slightly detached from the crowd, but a lot of them are in the crowd, so you have fans behind. They can’t hear what you’re saying because it’s too loud — normally — but they’re right behind you, and sometimes the microphones pick up some pretty choice language from them.
“So to come in and be able to spread out into the booth and use the headset and it’s air-conditioned, it’s lovely. It’s been a great experience.”
But perhaps most important of all: White’s usual halftime soup — a mainstay of his Premier League coverage — was replaced with ice cream nachos for his last match.
When in Rome, etc.