GLENDALE, Ariz. — The deep and rich voice heard in places from the World Series to the Stanley Cup is explaining about this being his last Final Four.
“If you ask anyone if they had the opportunity to do any one of the things that I’ve had the chance to do, would you do it? I would think the answer would be yes,” Gene Honda is saying courtside at State Farm Stadium. “So you smile and you say thank you and you go on.”
Gene Honda? Public address announcer for . . . well, lots of places.
If you’ve attended a Chicago White Sox baseball game since 1985, you’ve heard him. There have been nearly 2,700 chances because that’s how many games he’s worked, a career so long he is on his second ballpark on the south side of Chicago and his 11th White Sox manager. That’s calling out the names of a lot of good and bad lineups. “Mostly one side of that ledger,” he says with a laugh.
The fans in the stands never hear it but Honda has a great laugh. If you’ve attended a Blackhawks hockey game since 2001, you’ve heard him. That’s long enough for three Stanley Cup winners, including 2015, which you instantly know once you shake Honda’s hand since he’s wearing a championship ring. Can’t miss it. Looks as if he might sink if he ever jumped into a lake wearing the thing. On one side of the ring among all the diamonds is the word HONDA and a friend once jokingly asked, since when did Gene become a ring sponsor? Honda was miffed, not because of what the friend said but because he thought it was a great line and he hadn’t thought of it first.
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If you’ve been to DePaul basketball games, you’ve heard him. Illinois football games, you’ve heard him. The Big Ten basketball tournament, you’ve heard him. The Chicago Marathon, you’ve heard him.
And every Final Four game since 2003.
“It’s nice that I did a baseball game on Tuesday and then in 24 hours I’m going to do a basketball game (all-star game) and then two more and then one more and then I’ll get home and I have two hockey games with a baseball game in between,” he says. “If anyone gets bored with that, you’re not doing the job right.”
Honda, who once studied engineering, finance and broadcasting at the University of Illinois, is the only PA announcer who can say he’s worked a World Series, Stanley Cup, Final Four, Frozen Four and Major League All-Star Game. Plus something else. “Very rare that anyone in our business has the opportunity to say ‘I was the first,’ ” he says. “And I was the first to do that Field of Dreams game in Dyersville, Iowa when the White Sox hosted the Yankees. It doesn’t happen in our business.”
He is here at the stadium working on some spots for this Final Four. His last one. Time to ask which years he remembers the most. “You never forget your first,” he answers. “There’s going to be two or probably three that stand out for me. My first, 2005 because my Illini got to the Final Four in St. Louis and whatever happens this weekend.”
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He talks about how this all began, back in the home of a Japanese-American family on the north side of Chicago. His dad was an architect and Gene one day went to his father and said he’d like to be an architect as well. He wanted an opinion. “You’re not creative enough,” the dad said to his son. He advised Gene to improve his public speaking skills. The son turned that suggestion into radio work, and then PA announcing.
Honda lost his father in 2005 but wonder what Dad would be thinking now?
Years after he asked that question about architecture, having made his name far and wide for his PA work, Honda started to recall the conversation with his father. “Before I could finish he said, ‘I remember saying that and I regret having said that. But I will tell you I’m very proud and happy that you found something that you can be creative at.’
“I think there’s your answer.”
Honda talks about his nerves working the first White Sox game back in 1985, looking around at all the media people he had long listened to or read. “I started thinking, what the hell have I gotten myself into? Then I got a call from downstairs. ‘Hey listen, is it OK we’re going to do something a little different for the opener? How about you come down and announce from the field?’
“It’s your first day on the job. It’s a bad day to say I don’t think so.”
On Honda’s way down to the field, he grabbed a beer. “I get to the field, they give me a headset, a clipboard, the microphone. I turned to my left and it’s the governor of the state of Illinois and I’m thinking I should have had a second beer. You get through it. You have to be a little nervous. It gives you a little edge.”
Still nervous after all these years?
“I hope so. I’m hoping the emotions that this is the last Final Four don’t get in the way of being nervous.”
He talks about how draining his passion can get, jumping from sport to sport, stadium to stadium, microphone to microphone. Such as the recent week when he did 13 games at the Big Ten basketball tournament, then immediately returned to Chicago for a Blackhawks game. “Our statistician said, ‘Hey you did a nice job with the Big Ten. You OK?’ I said, ‘Yeah, just tell me when we shoot free throws tonight.’
“The voice does go every once in a while but it’s more what’s in between your ears that give out.”
And he talks about what’s ahead. No more Final Fours, but at 69, he intends to stay on the go with his other jobs.
“As long as I can still do it,” he says. “I still enjoy doing it. I still think I’m pretty good at it.”
Take next week when he gets home from the Final Four. He’s worked with the Chicago PBS station for 30 years and will immediately head back out to Pittsburgh to do national pledge breaks for WQED, the oldest community-sponsored station in America and the home of a certain iconic children’s program. “I will have the distinct honor and pleasure of working there,” he says, “then being kicked out of Mister Rogers’ neighborhood.”
So Gene Honda has his memories and he has a resume that is longer than Zach Edey’s arm. But for a true measure of fame, we haven’t gotten to the best part yet.
There’s a Gene Honda bobblehead.
Yep, courtesy of the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum in Milwaukee.
“I’m sure they have thousands of them still around,” Honda says. He has one at home but it doesn’t exactly sit on his dining room table. “It’s in a box. When guests come over you try to encourage their appetite.”
One last joke. Gene Honda is leaving his last Final Four laughing.