ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, June 18, 1996 TAG: 9606180065
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK STAFF WRITER
The voice calling University of Virginia football and basketball broadcasts this season will be a familiar one.
Mac McDonald, the voice of the Cavaliers' from 1980-85, returns to UVa broadcasts and more starting with the 1996-97 season. McDonald was named Virginia's TV/radio coordinator and the sports director at Charlottesville's WINA on Monday.
McDonald spent the past six years as the radio voice and coaches' TV show host at Wake Forest. At Virginia, he will call football and men's basketball, head the sports operation and assist in the station's sales effort in conjunction with Virginia Sports Marketing, the separate corporation that sells and promotes UVa's athletic program.
McDonald also will be co-producer and host of the TV shows for coaches George Welsh and Jeff Jones. Chuck Noe, host of the ``Cavalier Call-In'' radio shows with the coaches, is in the final year of his contract. If Noe chooses not to return - he has made some mentioning of retiring - then McDonald will host those shows, too.
Virginia athletic director Terry Holland contacted McDonald as long ago as February about changing his ACC address to aid the Cavaliers' sports marketing effort, but McDonald wasn't ready to give up play-by-play work. When 11-year UVa veteran Warren Swain resigned two weeks ago to become the play-by-play voice at Nebraska, Holland intensified his wooing of McDonald, a longtime friend.
Swain had succeeded McDonald as the Cavaliers' voice in the mid-80s. McDonald said he expects that the analysts and color announcers who have worked with Swain - Frank Quayle, Marc Iavaroni and Steve Melewski - will return.
``I told Terry that play-by-play, game day, was my passion,'' McDonald said of Holland's early overtures. ``I guess I'm like Pat Riley and Rick Pitino in that I want full control if I'm going to build it. Terry and I became very close when I was in Charlottesville previously. When Warren left, that opportunity was there.''
McDonald said he doesn't expect much change in the Cavaliers' network and in how the games sound on the air. He will, however, have an impact on programming. ``When Terry first called me, he said he'd like to see the network add more sizzle,'' McDonald said.
At Wake Forest, McDonald worked for International Sports Properties, which owns the Demon Deacons' rights and is also Virginia Tech's network and marketing firm. McDonald said one thing he has tried to do is ``make radio sound like television looks,'' and the Wake network has been praised for its recent efforts to keep listeners in tune with what's going on not only with the Deacons, but around the ACC as well.
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LENGTH: Medium: 60 linesby CNB