How this ‘all-timer’ ASU basketball call went viral
“There’s nothing quite like your hometown announcers.”
Tim Healey
The game was different from the start.
When Arizona State University played the University of Arizona in men’s basketball on Feb. 25 at the McKale Center in Tucson, it was a rare appearance on CBS for the Sun Devils.
The network was doubtlessly glad it broadcast the game — ASU won 89-88 on a miracle 60-foot shot by Desmond Cambridge Jr. But it’s not the CBS call of the game that was notable. It was ASU’s play-by-play radio announcer Tim Healey and his broadcast partner, analyst and former ASU player Kyle Dodd, absolutely losing it that made the biggest impression.
‘There’s nothing quite like your hometown announcers’
“There’s nothing quite like your hometown announcers,” Healey said a few days after the call. “In fact, I saw a lot of threads on Twitter to the effect of, ‘Is somebody going to post Tim Healey’s call? I want to hear Tim Healey’s call.’
“And I kind of was thinking to myself, well, I tell you what, you can hear the call if you listen to the game on the radio.”
He laughed.
“Everybody wants the good call after it’s done. Well, give us a listen during the game. We’re not too bad to listen to.”
They’re not. For the record, it’s worth noting exactly what Healey said.
The call that set Twitter ablaze
But first, to set the stage: Arizona led 88-86 after Arizona’s Oumar Ballo made a free throw. Let’s let Healey take it from there:
“So the final 2.9 seconds. In-bounded to Dez Cambridge, launches from backcourt — got it! HE MADE IT! HE MADE IT! HE MADE IT! Dez Cambridge knocks down a 3 from backcourt and the Sun Devils have won it! The Sun Devils have won it on a desperation 3-pointer from Dez Cambridge. Incredible! Nothing but net, from about 60 feet away for Dez Cambridge! Oh my goodness! Arizona State 89, Arizona 88. What a ball game, and what a finish.”
That last part was important to Healey, by the way.
“Sometimes you get so excited about
the play itself that maybe you forget to mention what was the final score … so I felt pretty good about that,” Healey said.
All of this was punctuated by Dodd shrieking and screaming, which is pretty funny to listen to.
“His reaction is just pure raw emotion of a Sun Devil player who I think was 1-8 in his career against the Wildcats,” Healey said.
This is Tim Healey’s 25th year calling ASU games
Pure raw emotion is evident in all of Healey’s broadcasts. He’s been broadcasting ASU sports — he does radio play-by-play for football, basketball and baseball — for more than 25 years. In fact, he wrote a story for TheSunDevils.com in August in which he listed his top 25 games he’s called.
“Certainly this play would zoom right to the very top of that top 25 list,” Healey said. “It’s easily in my top five and probably in my top two.”
The game was a return to action for Healey, who had been out with COVID-19. What a way to come back.
“I hadn’t called a game in three weeks, so I don’t know, maybe I was rested or something,” he said. “But I just felt good about our broadcast. And I am a big-time perfectionist. I’m one of those guys that if I said one word on a two- or three-hour sports broadcast
that I wasn’t happy with and everything else was great, I’d beat myself up over the one play I didn’t call as well as I would have liked.”
He liked this one.
“I really felt good about the broadcast in general,” Healey said. “It’s easy when you have such a great game to call.”
And that’s just it — it was a good game, not just a fairytale ending.
“I thought it was just a tremendous game,” Healey said, “as good an ASU-U of A game as I’ve ever called in Tucson. Two arch-rivals just battling their buns off, just fighting to the end. To have that ending on a great game was just the cherry on top of the sundae.”
A call like that isn’t something you can really prepare for in advance, because a shot like that isn’t something you can prepare for.
“Oh, it’s totally in the moment, totally instinctive, reflective,” Healey said. “You’re basically doing what you do all game long, every game you do, every sport you do, and that’s describe the action as it unfolds before you, and try to paint the picture for your listener.”
When calling games on radio, ‘you have to be their eyes and ears’
That’s the difference between calling games for a TV audience and calling them for radio listeners. If you were watching on CBS, for instance, that’s just it — you were watching. You saw it all unfold. If you turned the sound down, you’d still be jumping around your living room afterward. If you were listening on the radio, well, you had to rely on Healey to tell you what was going on.
“In that moment, I guess I’m sounding and I guess articulating the exact emotions that all ASU fans were feeling in that instant,” he said. “You have to be their eyes and ears and describe it as best you can to make them feel as though they’re watching the game with you.”
Broadcasters for college sports are different from those for professional games. The best are not out-and-out homers, but you’ll never have any trouble figuring out which school the announcers work for.
“You’re just so into it,” Healey said. “You’re just kind of responding to the play and to the moment. Maybe that’s why fans like to listen to the hometown broadcasters, because they have that emotion invested in the team and the players and the coaches and the program.”
When you hear Healey and Dodd call Cambridge’s shot, there’s no doubt about their emotional investment.
“It was an all-timer,” Healey said. “It was just a great sight to see it go through.”