Sean Moth, the Voice of the Louisville Cardinals

Sean Moth has been the Voice of the Cards for 18 years.

Are you from the Ville?

I was raised in Ft. Collins Colorado, until I went to college.  Went to college in California.   Young kid, I thought moving to LA for college would be a big deal but wasn’t my cup of tea so I came home and finished my education at Colorado State.   Lived in Ft. Collins for 29 years and moved to Louisville.

Were you recruited to come to Louisville?

Yeah I was working at radio station at Solorado State and Tom Jurich was the AD there.   I got to know Tom and when he took the job here, he had an idea he wanted to use me, I had worked with the Colorado Avalanche for 4 years as PA announcer and 2 years for the Denver Nuggets.  Did radio play-by-play for volleyball, women’s basketball and a couple men’s basketball games and did talk radio at Colorado State.  Tom offered me the opportunity to come here back in 1998 and ’99 was my first season.

Midwest to west coast to east coast, is there an obvious difference in sporting interest from coast to coast? 

There definitely is, it’s getting used to how fans treat different aspects of the game.  I’ve often thought there should be a social study on teams and how often/how willingly they are to change their uniform as they move further west because if you look at the Yankees and Celtics and east coast/old established teams… zero change.  But if you look at the franchises like the Sacramento Kings and the Warriors, Clippers… maybe there’s a nature that the people who established out west were looking for that kind of change.  But there is a distinct difference in the culture.

You have games almost every day, how do you prepare for every game-day?

I have the luxury, being an employee of the athletic department, I’m in the office 9-5 most days and on game days there are some liberties but I actually write all the scripts for all 10 sports.  Then I meet the SID’s for other teams and make sure I’m getting the names right.  Its something I’ve been doing for 25 years.  I do the most preparation for baseball games on the radio there’s a lot more prep involved because I have to talk about the teams by myself for 3 hours so I’m much more invested.  At basketball football and volleyball, I’m just mentioning names, starting line ups and some corporate stuff.

Do you practice PA at home?

I do not.  It’s impossible to replicate how it sounds.  I’ve had people ask me to do intro’s for radio shows and whatnot and it just doesn’t sound the same, I think it sounds contrived and I think it sounds terrible to be honest and maybe they would disagree.  But people always ask how I’m gonna say somebody’s name and I don’t know until the first time I say it and I’m sure a lot of times they evolve… the first time they start probably a whole lot different than 3 years later.  Even with Deng Adel, I heard his teammates call him ‘DA’ for the last 2.5 years finally I started calling him ‘DA’ every now and again.

Is it entirely up to you how you say their names?

To an extent, I’ve had a few players come up and tell me to either say their name or not say their name… Elvis Dumervil informed me that his middle name was ‘Kool’, so he wanted to be called Kool. He had a pretty good name as it was.  If I’m going to say a nickname, usually I ask the players or I’ll have to hear it so many times that I know that’s what their nickname was.  Like Quentin Snider.. he’s Q.

Do you exercise at all/breathing exercises?

(Laughs) My background is in vocal performance in music and theater, I used to sing for a living in a acapella quartet and I was in shows through high school and into college.  I would never say I’m classically trained because I hated voice lessons but I know how to breath properly with the diaphragm and I know how to take care of my voice.  I guess you could say there’s some classical training behind it and some breath control is crucial. I’ve always been blessed for whatever reason, I’ve never had problems talking or singing on one breath.

 

These are the people of the Ville and #cardnation.  We are who we are because of those who came before us.  #Wethefuture #L1C4

@darylfoust4

 

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Daryl Foust

Lifelong fan of the Louisville Cardinals, been covering the teams since 2012, graduated from c/o 2015, Writer/Contributor for TCZ for Men's Soccer, Women's Basketball & Softball since 2016.

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