From calling historic NCAA Tournament runs for Bradley to seeing St. Louis Cardinals games in Sportsman’s Park, men’s basketball radio play-by-play announcer and assistant director of athletic communication, Dave Snell has seen his fair share of sports history.
But, like most others, he has never experienced anything like today’s state of sports affairs in a world ravaged by COVID-19.
“Bradley has never had a postponement of a basketball game due to weather or anything else,” Snell said. “This is foreign territory for all of us, including somebody old like me.”
In addition to being the voice of the Braves on WMBD radio since 1979, Snell is an avid baseball fan. Having grown up in the Peoria area, Snell is a lifelong Cardinals fan and has seen games in all three of the team’s Busch Stadiums.
Since Snell has been a fan of Major League Baseball, there have been multiple player strikes and owner lockouts, but in all but one case, games were made up – the lone exception being the 1994 strike season that would wipe out most of the second half of the season, including the World Series.
The play stoppage this year, however, is a different animal, with no clear end in sight. Opening Day, which was originally scheduled for March 26, could be pushed all the way into July or August.
“I don’t think that getting back into even August would make it worthwhile to have a baseball season,” Snell said. “Sixty games is not enough to determine anything. You’ve had a strike season shortened before but there were still enough games left.”
As for the NBA, which was halted mid-season on March 11, Snell proposes a creative solution, similar to the format of March Madness.
“Instead of picking up where they left off, what they should do is kind of what the NCAA does and make everybody eligible for a tournament and make the games two out of three until you get to the championship,” Snell said.
In that scenario, every team would be eligible for the playoffs and seeded based on their current record. This would shorten the amount of time needed for the Association to play out the season, considering the estimated return date is being pushed later into the summer.
In the past, the NBA has tossed around ideas of a mid-season tournament, but it is unclear if they have considered an all-inclusive playoff format for this season.
As for the Olympics, now postponed until 2021, Snell is uncertain.
“Pretty much wherever the country is, everybody’s infected unless you live in Antarctica and I don’t think they have an Olympic team. They might have curling, but that’s about it,” Snell said jokingly.
In all seriousness, the sports-lifer hopes that all professional sports organizations can use this time productively to plan safety nets for the future.
“It’ll be a contingency plan for if this ever happens again, at least they’ll have some time to think about it and put that in a vault to get it out if they had to,” Snell said. “There’s plenty of time to talk about what-ifs and what if this happens in the future, what’s going to happen.”
This is the first of two articles from The Scout’s recent discussion with Dave Snell. The second features Bradley Basketball’s recent success through the lens of the longtime broadcaster.
