by Malcolm Butler
After a quarter of a century calling Louisiana Tech athletic events over the air, this face-for-radio as my “buddies” like to call me is moving to a different platform full-time starting this fall.
I signed off the radio for the final time after the Bulldogs heartbreaking double overtime loss to Middle Tennessee at the 2025 Conference USA Basketball Championships in Huntsville, Alabama, in mid-March. I knew then that the move was taking place after a number of conversations with Tech AD/VP Ryan Ivey and Senior Associate AD Kyle Kavanaugh..
This transition came at my request, and I appreciate Ryan and Kyle for their willingness to provide me this opportunity. Although I have loved traveling for 26 years with numerous Tech teams and seeing parts of this country (and others) that I probably would have never seen, it was time for me.
Time to get off the road.
So starting this fall, I will handle the play-by-play for ESPN+ for Tech football, men’s basketball, volleyball and softball while also working alongside my business partner and friend Kyle Roberts on Lady Techster hoops (I will come full circle after handling the PxP for that storied program for more than 20 years).
I also get to partner with Tech Hall of Fame QB Luke McCown for at least two of the football games this fall. Talk about full circle. I can still remember meeting the tall, lanky Texan during fall camp of his true freshman year in 2000 when he was getting fitted for pads in the football equipment room.
He will provide such a great outlook on the games with his extensive experience under center, including more than a decade in the NFL.
Looking forward to it.
It will be a bit of a transition, as I find a rhythm and cadence with the difference between radio and ESPN+. It’s definitely not the same.
With the radio, you are the eyes for the listeners. They fully depend upon you to paint the picture of what is happening on and off the court or field … every pass, shot, tackle, hit, catch. If you don’t tell the listener what is happening, welp, they don’t know.
On the other side of the mic, with ESPN+ or TV, the viewer is watching the game. They see what is happening on the court or field. They aren’t fully dependent upon you to talk about every pass, shot, tackle, hit and catch.
So the rhythm is completely different.
I have called softball and baseball (2021, 2024 CUSA Tournament) on ESPN+, and I found that transition to be pretty simple. I got a taste of hoops this past March when Teddy Allen and I teamed up to call the Lady Techsters two WNIT home games.
And, after broadcasting almost 1,500 Louisiana Tech athletic events over the past 25 years on the radio, I’m looking forward to the new challenge and role.
I am forever grateful to Jim Oakes for throwing me into the proverbial broadcasting fire way back in the fall of 2000. I will never forget him calling me into his office to tell me the decision.
I had provided a little color commentary with Lanny James the previous year with women’s hoops, and Lanny was penciled in to do it again the following season.
My conversation with Jim in his office which came just week before the season started went something like this.
Jim: “I have something to tell you. Lanny isn’t going to be doing the radio this year.”
Me: “Okay.”
I thought he was just telling me this since I was the women’s hoops SID and would be working with the next person.
Me: “So who is?”
Jim: “You are.”
Mic drop … or probably more like jaw drop.
I’m pretty sure I just sat there and starred at him before responding.
Jim: “You can handle it.”
I remember the late Wiley Hilburn, Jr. telling me it would be a huge opportunity for me and would really help my career.
I, on the other hand, was thinking it may end my career.
Wiley was right.
I would love to have a copy of the very first broadcast I ever did. It was November 10, 2000, when the Lady Techsters hosted UT-Chattanooga in the season opener at the Thomas Assembly Center. It was the first round of the preseason WNIT (a tournament that the Lady Techsters would win a few weeks later with a 68-63 win over No. 4 Purdue in West Lafayette, Indiana).
To say I was nervous for those first few broadcasts would be an understatement. I remember them vividly.
I wasn’t worried about the actual play by play part (the action). I was stressing over filling the 30-minute pregame show, 15-minute halftime show, and 30-minute postgame show by myself.
Even for a guy who constantly got in trouble for talking way too much in class in elementary and high school, this was way different. I’m sure I trudged my way through those first few broadcasts.
And the rest is history.
So as I make the transition over to ESPN+ this fall, I look forward to working with the athletic department’s talented broadcast production team in George Brandon, Carson Fryou, and Jack Stribrny and my fellow “talent” in Teddy Allen, Luke McCown, and Kyle Roberts.
It will be loads of fun. And this time I’m not nervous.
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I recently had an opportunity to sit down with Gavin Kelly in LA Tech University Communications to talk about my broadcasting career on the Beyond 1894 Podcast. It can be accessed HERE.
