University of Houston Athletics
Franklin Named Play-by-Play Voice For Cougar Sports
April 3, 2004
HOUSTON, Texas - Well-known Houston area sports radio personality Tom Franklin has joined the Houston ISP Sports Radio Network as play-by-play announcer for all Cougar football and men's basketball broadcasts beginning this fall.
Franklin, who has handled play-by-play duties for the Houston Oilers and Rice University, will also host "Cougar Talk," a weekly call-in radio show featuring UH head football coach Art Briles and new basketball head coach Tom Penders during their respective seasons. "Cougar Talk" will air for 21 weeks during the upcoming year.
"Tom Franklin comes with great credentials and is very well respected in the world of radio and sports play by play," said UH Director of Athletics Dave Maggard. "We are delighted to have Tom as our new Voice of the Houston Cougars."
Franklin has enjoyed an acclaimed career in sports radio in the Houston market, beginning with his first play-by-play assignment for KUHF-FM in its broadcasts of Cougar freshman football games in 1971. He has served as host of pregame and postgame shows for the Oilers, Rockets and Astros in addition to his live game broadcasting, and has been honored for his work by the Houston Press Club, the Dallas Press Club, the Texas Associated Press and the UPI Broadcasters of Texas.
"We are extremely excited to announce the addition of Tom Franklin to the Houston ISP Sports Network," Stacy Hall, general manager of the ISP Sports staff at UH, says. "With his years of experience in both the professional and collegiate ranks, we feel that Tom will give our broadcasts an even greater level of professionalism and help us reach our goal of providing our listeners the best possible broadcast."
Joining Franklin on the broadcast team in football will be Chuck Brown and Tony Fitzpatrick, who both were part of the network this past season. Their roles in 2004, however, will be reversed with Brown, a former all-Southwest Conference performer for the Cougars, taking over the sideline reporting duties and Fitzpatrick, an assistant coach at UH from 1988 through 1998, moving to the booth as color analyst.
"With Chuck's experience as a player and his familiarity with the coaching staff, we felt he could add even more to the broadcast from the sidelines," Hall says. "Tony has been a coach and should be able to draw on that background to analyze the game as it unfolds."
In basketball, Carl Dukes, who has called Cougar Basketball games for the past six years, will continue to be a part of the broadcasts as the color analyst.
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