NBC has 99 voices for everything from field hockey to badminton

NBC scrambled to find experts in odd or obscure Olympic sports to guide coverage of the 2004 games. As a result, the network came up with some surprises.

Where would it find commentators familiar with badminton and tae kwon do? Hockey games and basketball games?

Bill Clement is a former NHL all-star who did hockey analysis for the Winter games in 2002. In high school, however, he also played badminton. Now he’ll be the badminton analyst for NBC, while also analyzing table tennis and doing play-by-play for the pentathlon.

This is the first time a network has had enough cable channels to do full-scale coverage of all 28 sports. That required a hiring spree: In 2000, NBC had 67 commentators; for 2004 it announced a list of 99, including 28 former Olympians who have won a combined 41 medals.

Former Philadelphia 76ers president Pat Croce, who will have his own talk show this fall, has worked as an NBA commentator.

“During casual conversations we talked about martial arts,” says David Neal, who is now executive vice-president of NBC Olympics.

Croce, as it turns out, has a fourth-degree black belt in karate and a first-degree black belt in tae kwon do. In the latter, he’s won national and international competitions for his age group. After Neal chose him as the tae kwon do analyst, he took a course to become certified by the Amateur Athletic Association as a tae kwon do referee.

Such accidental discoveries are helpful.

NBC had already hired Siri Lindley as an analyst for the triathlon, in which she’s a former world champion, but when it learned she had been a college star in field hockey it gave her that sport as a second assignment.

Some of those guiding the Games will be unfamiliar. Spero Dedes, who will do field hockey play by play, is only 25. Others include ex-Olympians such as swimmer Rowdy Gaines, high-jumper Dwight Stones and volleyball player Karch Kiraly.