They See It All

SMU’s Popular Radio Team Keeps Pony Fans “Up,” Informed

DALLAS - As SMU struggles to avoid a second consecutive one-win season, two valiant observers have sat side by side, through heart-draining close losses and numbing, not-so-close losses - and never looked away. (Not every Mustang fan can say that.)

In fact, radio play-by-play man Rich Phillips, “The Voice of the Mustangs,” and his colorful, hard-charging analyst, Craig Swann, haven’t looked away for eight years. What they’re seeing now, after 23 wins and 67 losses, is a growing positive momentum for the Mustangs - and that’s just what SMU fans tuning in will hear.

“We’re there to promote the program,” Phillips said on Tuesday at a Starbucks near the Park Cities. “We know that’s a lot of it. We’re ‘homers’ and we’re supposed to be.”

While being upbeat is part of the job, it’s obvious with these two that the approach is real.

Rich Phillips, left, and Craig Swann are in their eighth season of broadcasting SMU football together. "None of it's ever manufactured," Swann said of the on-air emotion.

“I always try to be optimistic,” said Swann, an All-Southwest Conference linebacker for the Mustangs in’95. “My dad’s a coach. I’ve played and I never try to be negative and, definitely, never point out one specific player, even if I may feel that way.”

“Everybody wants to win and they’re doing the best they can. I’m there to just call the game and feel the emotion that everyone else is feeling out there - and I’m cheering for the team. There’s no bones about that.”

Phillips, sports director at The Ticket, KTCK 1310 AM, the broadcast home of SMU football, said upbeat notes are an important part of their game presentation. “Like in the Houston game the other night, I think we brought up the stat that Bo Levi [Mitchell] had like 12 touchdowns and two interceptions in the last three games.”

“You’ve got to look at those things and show where the progress is. And try not to insult [listeners’] intelligence. There are some things that haven’t gotten better.”

Being In Games

Phillips said these last two seasons haven’t been that difficult from a broadcasting standpoint. “I mean, look at last year,” he said. “Three overtime losses, another on the last play of regulation, another in the last minute. … We were in all those games. And this year, Houston and Tulsa, we were in those games down to the end.”

The winless 2003 campaign is another story. “Awful,” Phillips called it - and not just because of the 0-12 record, but because of the lopsided scores. “The games were over in the second quarter,” said Swann.

“While there was some hope for the future [in ‘03], we weren’t seeing it yet,” Phillips said. “This year, hey, we’re seeing some signs. We’ve got a quarterback and two wide receivers that are awful good.”

Phillips sees positive signs, defensively, too. “They gave up 40 less [points] to Tulsa than UTEP did.” he said. “They did things to do that.”

“There’s one thing I’ll say, though. Sometimes, like after that Houston game, I sit there and think, ‘That was an awful lot of work we put together for that result.’ And I think, ‘Gosh, I hope the players don’t feel like that.’”

‘It’s Real’

“None of it’s ever manufactured,” Swann said of his on-air emotion. “I’m an emotional person, even when I played. You want SMU to win, so every time when you hear the emotion coming from us, it’s real.”

And when Swann gets too real, Phillips tactfully reels him in – off-air.

“All I do,” Phillips said, “if he’s totally getting in the way of the broadcast, when we go to commercial, I’ll say, ‘Swann, we’ve gotta calm you down over there.’”

“Exactly,” laughed Swann. “And I get it. I’m like, ‘You’re right. Point taken.’”

“Rich is a great guy,” Swann said. “There’s plenty of play-by-play guys out there who’ve got a huge ego and Rich is pretty good to me.”

Swann especially enjoys the chemistry the two have. “We can go into a broadcast and not even talk about what we’re about to say in the next segment, and he can throw something out and we run with it.”

And they both enjoy giving former Mustang and “rookie” sideline reporter John Hampton a hard time. Hampton, the leading pass-catching tight end in SMU history, is in his third year with the crew.

Mustang Analysis

Swann says throw out the Navy game as far as grading the defense. “I remember playing against that [triple-option] offense,” he said. “We could have a very good defense and come out and just stink that game up every time.”

Phillips points to SMU’s offensive line as a sign of what this coaching staff can do. “A lot of it is the same guys from last year and those that aren’t the same hadn’t played. … As much as we throw the ball, our quarterback is not having to run for his life like [Justin] Willis did the last two years.”

Swann said head coach June Jones’ biggest challenge may be ending SMU’s losing mentality. “I remember,” Swann said, “from going back to playing myself, it was the third or fourth quarter and you’ve got a lead on [ Texas] A&M or North Carolina or UCLA and you’re like, ‘Fourth quarter. OK, what’s gonna happen?’ You try not to think that way, but after you’ve done it so many times, that comes into your mind.”

“A lot of it comes to talent too,” he said. “I know in the Southwest Conference our problem always was their second-string guys were as good as their first-string guys and our second-string guys weren’t.”

Phillips says defensive recruiting will be “the real key” to SMU’s success.

Blackjack Pre-game

Before their first broadcast together, the ‘01 Louisiana Tech game in Shreveport, Phillips and Swann had met only twice. Said Phillips, “We went to dinner one night a couple of weeks before the season and we met at the Blackjack table the night before [the game].”

Then, when SMU traveled to Hawaii the next year, the two took their wives along and they all had a couple of nights on the town. “We got to know each other out there and that’s where we really struck a friendship,” Phillips said.

“He’s really comfortable on the air,” Phillips said of Swann. “Some guys aren’t who go from playing to doing that.”

“It took awhile,” Swann said. “Go back and listen to some Year One tapes and it’s pretty brutal. I’m not gonna to lie to you.”

Swann began his SMU radio gig in 2000, a year before Phillips arrived. Swann’s play-by-partner that first year was Mark Followill, the current Dallas Mavericks play-by-play announcer.

“I roll in the first game [with] no notes, because I had no idea,” Swann said.

“Poor Followill. He just got to experience the bad part. He never got to experience the ‘seasoned Swann.’”

“What I try to do now is just be myself,” Swann said. “When an SMU fan hears me they kind of empathize: ‘Yeah, that’s exactly how I feel,’ you know?”

Beginnings

Phillips majored in Radio/Television/Film at the University of North Texas, graduating in ’93. There, he learned play-by-play from the legendary Bill Mercer of Dallas Cowboys, Texas Rangers and professional wrestling broadcast fame. “He’s the man,” Phillips said. “It was a class where we did it on tape and turned it in for a grade. … He’d listen back and give us critiques.”

Swann got noticed doing sideline TV reporting for an SMU-Arkansas game in ‘98. When radio analyst and former Mustang Dan Freiburger took a job in Ohio, Swann got the call.

A History/English major at SMU, Swann now works for a money management firm in Dallas.

Swann and Phillips easily agree on their broadcast highlight to date: SMU’s miraculous 2005 win at UAB, when Bobby Chase hauled in a Hail Mary touchdown pass from Jerad Romo as time expired.

The wild radio moments that followed earned the prestigious “Homer Call of the Year” award from The Ticket. “People give Swann lots of flak because you hear him so much on the infamous call but if you listen on the background, there’s one person, Chris Walker, screaming way off in the background. But, I mean, hell, I was screaming too.”

“How many times do you actually get to be at a game where something like that happens? Four plays, 22 seconds, 80 yards and you win. Much less, with what we’ve gone through at SMU. It was the first road win in three years.”

The toughest loss? Rice, in ’06, with a bowl on the line. “We lose by four points and we had first-and-goal at the one, twice, and got three out of it,” Phillips said. “That’s the most crushing moment right there.”

But take it from Phillips and Swann: the best is yet to come.

(Audio credit: the Mustang Radio Network)

Article by Rick Atkinson -
CUSA Fans SMU Correspondent