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5 Questions for Don Criquiby Andrew Marchand, NY Post
Who is the most memorable analyst you have ever worked with? It happens to be the first guy I worked with, Norm Van Brocklin, the Hall of Fame quarterback with the Eagles. He was just a very unusual, different guy. Van Brocklin had a nickname for everyone. He called me the French Phantom- I'm mostly Irish, but my name is French. We did the New Orleans Saints the first year we worked together. He used to get a little (raucous) late in the evening. I would have to give him the slip, so he called me the French Phantom. What's the biggest difference between now and when you started, in the mid-60s? When I started doing games, the players wore Roman numerals. You grew up in Buffalo. Did you want to be a sportscaster? I used to listen to the Yankees with Mel Allen. I thought he was just a great baseball announcer in the way he would say things. The guy I learned most from, and a guy who has been in New York for many years, is Bill Mazer. I learned how to do play-by-play by listening to Mazer do Cansisius College basketball on the radio. He was an excellent play-by-play guy. You are going to take a little bit of a historical perspective on this Big East Tournament title game on ESPN Classic. Who is the best Big East player of All-Time? For sheer ability I don't think I've ever seen a guy better than Derrick Coleman- shooting, passing, everything. That's for the Big East. The best college basketball player I ever saw was Oscar Robertson. How many more years do you want to broadcast? I love doing it. If I didn't do this, I would have to get a job. As long as they will have me, I am going to keep coming/
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