Ron Franklin

Ron Franklin (born February 2, 1942 in Jackson, Mississippi) is an American sportscaster, who joined ESPN in 1987. He primarily works as a play-by-play commentator for ESPN's coverage of college basketball and college football. From 1987 to 2005, he anchored "ESPN College Football Primetime" primarily with Mike Gottfried, but in 2006, he moved over to ESPN2 College Football Primetime with Ed Cunningham. In 2007, that crew will move to ESPN on ABC to call mainly Big 12 games. In college basketball, he is the primary ESPN play-by-play man with Fran Fraschilla for Big 12 games. The duo also calls the NIT Championship.

Also, in the past, he has called the tennis French Open, college baseball and the U.S. Olympic Festival.

He signed a contract extension with ESPN in 2006.

Before ESPN

Prior to ESPN, he was basketball and football play-by-play commentator for the University of Texas from 1983-1988. He was also the play-by-play voice of the Houston Oilers from 1971-1982. He also worked as sports director for four different local news stations including: KSWS in Roswell, New Mexico in 1965, KVOO in Tulsa, Oklahoma from 1967-1971, KHOU-TV and KPRC-TV, both in Houston, Texas from 1971-1980 and 1980-1987 respectively.

Franklin is a graduate of the University of Mississippi and a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity. He is married with one child.

Holly Rowe Incident

On October 1, 2005, according to the Chicago Tribune, during a game between Notre Dame and Purdue that Franklin was calling, sideline reporter Holly Rowe lauded Purdue defensive coordinator Brock Spack for using all three timeouts on defense despite trailing by four touchdowns late in the game. "If the coaches are giving up," Rowe added, "what does that say to the players?" Franklin responded: "Holly, it's not giving up. It's 49-21, sweetheart."

In response to that, Mo Davenport, senior coordinating producer for college football said, "It was an inappropriate comment, and we've communicated that to Ron. There's never a reason to say something so mean-spirited. Ron apologized. We dealt with it internally."

Fan support

Ever since Franklin was dropped from the Saturday primetime games on ESPN in 2005, many fans and bloggers have expressed their displeasure with the demotion. Even Richard Deitsch of SI.com wrote about how many people were displeased about the move. [http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/richard_deitsch/01/12/media.circus/1.html] However, in response to this, Franklin has simply said:

For Franklin fans, the good news is that he doesn't plan on hanging it up anytime soon. -January 2007

References

* [http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:etnPAyAgkNgJ:www.newsombudsmen.org/cgi-bin/ono_article.pl%3Fmode%3Dview%26article_id%3D1129341866+ron+franklin+espn&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=7 Organization of News: Drawing a Line Between Reporting and Commentating]
* [http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/big12/stories/MYSA082505.2C.FBCespn.franklin.a7cab3b9.html MySanAntonio.com: ESPN announcer Ron Franklin comments on college football]

External links

* [http://sports.espn.go.com/espntv/espnBio?type=name ESPN.tv bio page]
* [http://dodgyatbest.blogspot.com/2006/09/one-horrible-cfb-change-too-many.html Blogger.com: One Horrible CFB Change Too Many]
* [http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/richard_deitsch/01/12/media.circus/1.html SI.com: Veteran broadcaster Ron Franklin getting some love]