The NCAA News - News and Features

The NCAA News -- March 1, 1999

Passing the microphone

Final Four's Frank Fallon developed an anonymous job into a legacy

BY DAVID PICKLE
STAFF WRITER

Timekeepers, scorekeepers and public-address announcers usually are better off if nobody knows who they are.

But Frank Fallon somehow was different.

The "Voice of the Final Four," who retired last year after 21 years at the microphone, managed to keep the focus on the event, keep himself in the background and become something of an institution all at the same time.

His Final Four career was bracketed with a pair of championships by Kentucky, the first coming when Jack Givens led the Wildcats to the 1978 title.

Although nobody could ever tell, Fallon was making it up as he went along, defining how the job of Final Four public-address announcer should be done.

"Dave Cawood (former NCAA assistant executive director) told me, 'You know what you have to do; go ahead and do it,' " Fallon said. "In 21 years, nobody said anything different."

That, of course, is because Fallon did his job so well. He followed simple guidelines that kept the fan up front and himself in the background. He seldom said an extra word, and he never indulged in any fancy phonetics.

"Word economy is important," he said. "And you don't want to point out the obvious."

But what may have set Fallon apart the most were hours upon hours of preparation.

"I remember in the 1989 tournament in Seattle, I knew that Glenn Rice was about to become the all-time leading scorer in Big Ten history, so I was able to tell the fans about it when it happened," he said.

When the 1989 title game between Michigan and Seton Hall went into overtime, Fallon was ready with the news that it was the first overtime championship game since Loyola (Illinois) defeated Cincinnati in 1963.

"You wanted to tell the fans that they were part of history," he said.

His favorite championship game? Villanova's 66-64 victory over Georgetown in 1985 (Villanova was 22 of 28 from the field, Fallon correctly noted), followed closely by North Carolina's win over Georgetown in 1982 (Michael Jordan's game-winner) and Indiana's victory over Syracuse in 1987 (Keith Smart's winning shot with five seconds remaining).

Fallon is now 68, and he is battling a case of Parkinson's disease that was first diagnosed in 1994.

"There's a lot of pressure involved with doing the Final Four and I don't need that now," he said. "My hometown is San Antonio, and I thought it was a good idea to wind up there last year."

Now the microphone has been passed to Jackie Bowe, who has done extensive public-address work in Virginia and serves now for Norfolk State University. Bowe also has done Hampton University basketball games and has worked as the voice of the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association and Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference men's basketball tournaments.

Although Bowe says the assignment is "a dream come true," he zoomed through the field of nominees without even knowing he was a candidate.

He said that MEAC Commissioner Charles Harris asked him to submit tapes for a conference promotion.

Harris forwarded the tapes to the NCAA, which was in the process of finding a replacement for Fallon. The next thing Bowe knew, he was among the final four candidates for the Final Four.

More tape requests followed and, finally, just after Christmas, he was chosen as the new voice of one of the world's top sporting events.

Has he met his distinguished predecessor?

"No, I haven't met Frank Fallon," Bowe said, "but I know who he is.

"He sounds like somebody I would like to meet someday."