Jill Montgomery is the Worst

really big names out here wrote:

Sounds like she has had a conversation with each and every athlete in this meet. How is there enough time in the day?

You get the opportunity to meet multiple athletes and connect with them at a meet. I have had conversations with up to 20 athletes at last NCAA’s - 2019, and I am nobody in the media.

It’s not that difficult to do actually, especially if you talk to only the top athletes.

Say what you will about Dwight Stones, and I think there's been criticism of him here in the past, but I think he gets a lot right. First and most important, he has the tone and cadence of a solid announcer, he makes you feel the import of the event, and the excitement; maybe he doesn't transmit the excitement at quite the level of the very top announces, but still good. The thing he REALLY does well, and this is taken for granted a lot among announcers, is that he's very accommodating and inviting to whoever is the color analyst. He speaks in clips and a few sentences at a time and then warmly and invitingly, through tone, gives the analyst the chance to make their comment.

I really can't tell you how knowledgeable Jill M is about track because I immediately try to shut her voice out, because she seems to have only 1 gear: "I'm the star here." Unlike Stone, she seems to make no effort whatsoever to forge a connection/camaraderie/partnership with the play by play announcer. It's jarring. I take some of that back. She did make some good and interesting points, but I just find her so off putting. Maybe they can work with her on style, she does seem to have passion for the sport.

I like Stones's delivery and tone, but in the 10k, he kept referring to Wesley Kiptoo as "Wilson" Kiptoo. It happened more than once. In what other sport is it acceptable to get an athlete's name wrong, especially one that we all knew was going to be at the front of the pack?

Per Jill’s IG, this was her last broadcast.

LRC note: here is the post.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CP_PsWBnCOy/

I listened to Oto Bolton do the Pac 12 commentary. He's very good. It was the first time I heard him do distance events and he was more than acceptable. Put him with Carrie Tollefson and you've got a pretty knowledgeable duo for sprints and distance.

Dwight Stones is ok but it seems to me that he often doesn't do his homework on the athletes. Jill doesn't bother me as much as Tom Hammond, who was without doubt the worst t & f commentator in the history of the sport. I defy anyone to tell me one thing Tom Hammond said that wasn't obvious to anyone who had their eyes on the screen. He called every event like a horse race. Over and over he would tell you the leader and the next 4 behind in every single lap of a 10k race. He would mispronounce names, call lead changes about 30 seconds after they happened, and spoke with the enthusiasm of Hans Molman from the Simpsons.

Agreed on Hammond, I just posted something about him in another thread, he was awful.

not sara hall wrote:

please

Jill > Tim Hutchings

It took me 10 minutes to get so sick and tired of Montgomery, I had to turn off the TV volume! That woman has diarrhea of the mouth!

Canadian here, and it always annoyed me when hockey announcers (Pierre McGuire) would need to mention the conversations they had with the players, acting like they're friends texting and chilling before the game, not during required press availability as was probably the case. Jill was doing the same here, and I found it equally annoying.

bio drome wrote:

Oh, and Montgomery can’t be the worse. Masback will forever be the worse track commentator.

I think it is a dead heat in terms of annoyance and the ability to make even the greatest fan be bored with the race.

Although I hold a special place in hell for Masbsck, because I ran into him once at 1996 trials, Long before there was Internet or streaming or any such thing and we we’re at the mercy of NBC, to show a race over 1500.

I asked him if he could push for showing the steeple and the 5 and 10ks, and his reply was, “if the US had any good distance runners, then NBC would show it”. Hopefully Todd Williams and Bob Kennedy punched him in the face behind the scenes.

Commentary is tough - it's a real art form knowing the right balance of what to say and when to say it and then conversely keeping your mouth shut.

In the past it was an art that took years to craft and the best guys (like David Coleman the GOAT and Peter Matthews the second best to ever do it) took years to get to the level - constantly perfecting and mastering it.

Of course now the requisite for being a commentator is just being either a former athlete or having a connection with the sport. Like Jill Montgomery who is awful. If you don't understand the true essence of being a commentator you will end up like her - making it more about you by talking nonstop through the action and actually ruining the experience.

Hey she's not alone though - look at the NBA and NFL in particular - every ex-player wants to cash in post career as a hot-take guy or commentator and the vast majority of them are idiots who just, like Montgomery, end up making you want to jam pencils into you ear canals.

If it paid well I would cover announcing. I used to do voice overs. Checked pay rates and track is horrible, tour de france is ten times higher than even the olympics and ncaa on a daily rate.

Get that Brit and his partner Jenny Meadows. They can announce.

Sorry, it was this thread and in another one too.

Brilliant news: Montgomery is gone. Let's hope she comes out of retirement to replace Tim Hutchings in the booth at the Chevron Houston Marathon. Pair Montgomery with the local yokels hired to call & color the race and the commentary goes from barely listenable (thanks to Hutchings) to riotously, unintentionally hilarious.

Maybe Kyle Merber deserves a shot sooner rather than later. He's knowledgeable and already demonstrates keen insight and restraint from showboating, chumminess (somewhat) and general obnoxiousness. If he's up for putting in the work to master the craft over time and resists pressure to become an insidious sponsored content stooge, he could be a solid replacement.

Might a Stones/Hutchings paring be sober, a bit cerebral even, and obliquely entertaining?

Otherwise, come Trials time, muting the network broadcast sound and listening to the FloTrack live stream (once again) will do the trick.

1) ALL broadcasters, other than a handful EVER, suck.

2) It's not their fault that they suck. The job sucks. They are paid to TALK, and they often have a lot of time to fill. Unfortunately, because of that, they end up saying the same stuff over and over again and will say some very obvious things and some stupid things. Par for the course.

3) I never understand why people get so upset at what broadcasters say...unless they say something racist or some other inappropriate thing, who cares? I never tune in to hear what ANYONE has to say about a sporting event. I want to watch the event. Got an interesting fact about an athlete? Ok...that's mildly interesting. Want to give a play-by-play? Ok. I couldn't care less though about opinions or their observations. So what that someone wants to talk about "leg turnover"? I never understood why that was offensive to so many of you. So, someone says a running back (who doesn't) has "world class speed", or whatever. Most people are flawed and don't know much. Why get so mad about it when that is represented by a broadcaster?

Anyway, Jill Montgomery never bothered me. I couldn't care less about what she or most broadcasters have to say to be bothered. You shouldn't either.

flagpole's partially right, but if you're going to repeat things, the cliches at least ought to be correct. sometimes they can actually get funny through repetition (i always still laugh every time i hear gut-check time during any sport broadcast).

but if every athlete you talk to in the lobby before their race says their training is going great (or as jill put it, "comfortable in their training"), then i'm purposely going to start misquoting them, or better yet, not quoting them at all, until someone finally reveals "my training's gone horrible. not sure why i'm here or how i made the final. wish me luck."

and why talk about workouts in a general sense at all? tell us about an actual workout by an actual athlete, and maybe that's interesting, but probably not. i think too many track announcers, while working correctly with the assumption that the sport is dying, feel like if the viewer just knew as much about the sport as they do, they'd like it, and commence to treat it like an instructional video. oh well...

but back to the point: i, like others, muted long portions of the broadcast. she really was like nails on a chalkboard for me, and i say that respectfully, because clearly she's worked hard doing nails-on-a-chalkboard thresholds and cut-downs all season, even stating that she's told us this all season, and this week she literally showed up...

adidasmark wrote:

I like Stones's delivery and tone, but in the 10k, he kept referring to Wesley Kiptoo as "Wilson" Kiptoo. It happened more than once. In what other sport is it acceptable to get an athlete's name wrong, especially one that we all knew was going to be at the front of the pack?

Stoens problem isn't delivery in tone, I think its excellent....the problem with stone is he misidentifies people when its clear as day on the track, its really not that difficult. Also, why were he and stone pronouncing elle hennes as hines, it was corrected after multiple errors when I'm sure a producer told them. That shows a clear lack of preparation. And after the first day of woman events, why didn't the espn producers have a talk with montogmery about the excessive mistruths and nonsense she was spewing, just commentate on the race and stop bs ing about distance training.

Tim H used to always have to work in a MO Farah reference a number of times a broadcast. Thankfully he has stopped that

Flagpole wrote:

I never understand why people get so upset at what broadcasters say...unless they say something inappropriate

I felt offended for the 200 winner, an unheralded and fairly unknown sophomore, when after completing an NCAA 100-200 double, the first words from Montgomery's mouth was (paraphrasing) "Abby Steiner who dominated the 200 indoor is hurt and that allowed runner X to and others to have a chance." Nothing wrong with mentioning Steiner was tough indoor and hurt, but not at that moment and not in a degrading way to the winner and others. After all, getting to the line healthy is a major part of track & field. I thought it was very inappropriate.