MSM Feature – Ron Franklin: Local Vocal

After finding his voice as a child, Ole Miss alum Ron Franklin embarked on a successful career in sports broadcasting

By Cary Estes

Before Ron Franklin ventured out for a life immersed in the sporting world, he brought that world to him.
As a young boy growing up in Hazelhurst, Miss., in the early 1950s, Franklin would retreat to the sanctuary of his room, close the door, and turn on an electric football game. There, on the vibrating metallic playing surface of Franklin’s field, players moved erratically in a steady hum (including that one guy who would always mysterious churn furiously in a tight circle).
And as the action took place in front of his youthful eyes, Franklin would call out a play-by-play. Linemen butted heads. Tailbacks broke for daylight. Cornerbacks were alone on an island. There was constant electricity in the stadium
This was Ron Franklin’s imaginary life as a child. It turned out to also be his real life as an adult. For nearly 40 years, Franklin’s soothing baritone has drifted across America’s airwaves and into our homes and cars. First as the play-by-play voice for the Houston Oilers and the University of Texas, and then for the past 22 years as a game commentator for ESPN.
This was, of course, never the plan. How could it be? How could a young child from 1950s small-town Mississippi ever envision such a wondrous life? Traveling throughout the country and even venturing overseas. Sitting in person to watch games that, during his youth, he could follow only through a crackling transistor radio.
And yet, as the electrically charged running back with the permanently outstretched arm vibrated down the sideline, and young Ron Franklin’s voice rose to that high pitch children have when something exciting is happening, the moment felt right to him. It felt comfortable.
Without knowing it, Franklin already was heading down what would become his chosen career path.
“It was something that interested me more than I realized at the time,” Franklin said. “Sports has always really been my love, and football is my passion.”
Like most boys, that passion initially was for playing the games. Franklin received permission from his mother to pursue athletics, but under one condition. He also had to take voice lessons.
“We had a couple of uncles who had pretty good voices, and she thought I had a decent voice and she wanted me to try to cultivate it,” Franklin recalled. “Some of the things that have really helped me with my voice came from those early days when I was taking voice lessons.
“When I say my prayers, I always thank my mom for what she did for me, having the insight to make me do that.”
The decision paid off after Franklin’s family moved to Oxford when he was 14. Franklin suffered a head injury in high school that resulted in the formation of a blood clot. Not only was his football career over, he no longer was eligible for the military.
At about this same time, Franklin came upon an opportunity to work as a teen DJ. Suddenly, all those years of voice lessons made sense, especially as Franklin began to explore the possibility of combining his broadcast capabilities with his love for sports.
“I thought, ‘This is really an intriguing business,’ ” Franklin said. “(The injury) is what directed me at a broadcasting career, because I really do care for sports. And the more I investigated it, I realized that they’ll actually pay you for doing this.”
While a student at the University of Mississippi, Franklin got a job working at WSUH-AM. He often broadcast the wake-up shift, spent most of the day attending classes, and then returned to the station in the evening to cut commercials. He also flexed his improving voice box by performing in college theater productions, including “South Pacific” and “The Music Man.”
“All of that really turned into a very important part of my life,” Franklin said. “But sports was always there also.”
So after graduating from Ole Miss, Franklin began working his way up the television sports-anchor ladder. He spent two years in Roswell, N.M., and 3½ years in Tulsa, Okla., before being offered a job with the CBS affiliate in Houston in 1971 at age 29.
“It was not a terrific amount of money,” Franklin said, “but it was more money than I thought I’d ever see.”
Franklin picked up a side gig as the play-by-play announcer for the Houston Oilers, a position he held through the 1982 season (a span that included the Oilers “Luv Ya Blue” playoff runs of the late 1970s). It was, Franklin said, a wonderful time in his career.
And yet, for a former country boy weaned on Ole Miss football, there was something missing. A Sunday NFL game just couldn’t match a Saturday afternoon on a college campus. So when the opportunity arose in 1983 for Franklin to become the play-by-play man for the University of Texas, he quickly accepted.
“It wasn’t that I didn’t like the pros, but I was longing for being around college athletics and particularly college football,” Franklin said. “The color, the pageantry, just everything that goes on with college football. I just knew I would enjoy that more.
“As it turned out, that hire really changed our life in a lot of ways, because we fell in love with Austin. Our son went to Texas, and we still live there now.”
Franklin had been announcing University of Texas football and basketball games for only two years when he received an offer to work for ESPN. The network was still young at the time, but it was growing rapidly and had become the hot place to work in sports television. Nobody was turning them down.
Franklin turned them down.
They couldn’t believe it. Nobody told them no,” Franklin said with a laugh. “But I had promised (Texas athletic director) DeLoss Dodds I’d give him at least three years, and I didn’t want to go back on that.
“When I told him about (rejecting ESPN’s offer), he raised his eyebrows and said, ‘They can offer you things I could never offer. They can pay you so much more money than I can pay you, it’s not even funny. If they call you again, take it.’ ”
Sure enough, Franklin received a second offer from ESPN the following year. He was told there would not be a third. This time he accepted.
Even since, Franklin’s life has been a near-endless array of stadiums and arenas, big games and memorable moments. From 1987 to 2005, he anchored ESPN’s Saturday college football primetime games. In 2006, he switched to ESPN2’s college football primetime, and then in 2007 moved to ESPN on ABC to call mainly Big 12 games.
In college basketball, Franklin is ESPN’s primary play-by-play man for Big 12 games. Over the years he has provided ESPN with play-by-play for tennis (including the 1991, ’92 and ’93 French Opens), college baseball and the U.S. Olympic Festival In addition, he has hosted The NCAA Today and Sportsman’s Challenge, as well as the Bassmaster Classic fishing tournament.
“I’ve been so blessed. I’ve been very, very lucky,” Franklin said. “I’ve been blessed to have been at the right place at the right time. To be able to do so many college football games, especially in the SEC, which to me is coming back home. I know the schools and I understand the people, because they’re the kind of people I grew up around.
“Every year when we start another season, I’d think, ‘Man, you are so lucky. Don’t be stupid enough to mess it up.’ ”
Even though he has several decades of events to choose from, Franklin said two of the most memorable games he has called occurred in the past three years. And they took place only 12 months apart.
The first was the epic national championship showdown in the 2006 Rose Bowl between Texas and USC, with the Longhorns prevailing 41-38 on a touchdown run by quarterback Vince Young with only 19 seconds remaining. Franklin called the game on radio for broadcast nationally and on the Armed Forces Radio Network.
“For Vince Young to perform the way he did and for them to pull that thing out was amazing,” Franklin said. “I heard from people for a month after that. Soldiers who were someplace overseas listening to the game. That was really, really special.”
Almost a year to the day later, Franklin was fortunate enough to be calling the 2007 Fiesta Bowl between Oklahoma and Boise State. The Sooners were heavy favorites, but Boise pulled off the shocker in overtime, winning the game on a trick-play two-point conversion. It has been called one of the greatest games in college football history, and certainly one of the biggest upsets.
“Do you believe in miracles? Well, in this case, I thought that was a miracle,” Franklin said. “I thought Oklahoma would run them off the field. That one had so much drama. It was a game that was truly, truly fun to do.”
Despite all his travels and the fact he now lives in Texas, Franklin said he remains an Ole Miss fan at heart. After calling the late-night Orange Bowl game this past New Year’s Day, he intentionally booked the earliest flight he could find the next morning in order to be home in time to watch the Rebels play in the Cotton Bowl.
“I got home just before the game started, and we sat there glued to the television,” Franklin said. “I was very proud of the way they played.”
Though Franklin admits he has to put aside his feelings for Ole Miss whenever he is working, he is quick to extol to his colleagues the majesty of a football Saturday in Oxford. In fact, he said he regularly campaigns to ESPN GameDay host Chris Fowler for the need to have the traveling pre-game show make a stop at The Grove.
“My greatest disappointment is the fact that GameDay has never come to Oxford. That’s a sacrilege. It is so silly,” Franklin said. “I tell Fowler, ‘You guys have to come to Ole Miss.’ Maybe now that (head coach Houston) Nutt is there, and I think they’re going to get consistently better, maybe now they will do that.
“Because that absolutely is one of the fun college places on the planet. And the downtown and everything, good heavens, I don’t know of a more fun place if you’re a fan who enjoys college football but also wants to have a good time for the weekend. You don’t have to look too much past that zip code.
“Everyone else is a rank amateur compared to The Grove. I’m sorry, but there’s nothing that comes close. A Saturday night in Baton Rouge is very good. Those people have a really good time. There are a lot of good places. But The Grove is absolutely, totally unique. There are some others that are pretenders, that try to do the same thing. But in my heart and mind, The Grove will always be No. 1.”
As Franklin talks and becomes increasingly excited, he slips ever so slightly out of his deep, rich broadcast voice, and the hint of a slight Southern accent creeps in. It is a fleeting moment, but it is a telling example that the 67-year-old Franklin has not abandoned his Mississippi roots.
That’s also evident a few moments later, when the subject turns to bass fishing.
“My dad took me fishing when I was really young, and bass fishing is still absolutely an obsession with me,” Franklin said. “I caught a 9½-pound bass earlier this year. It’s big to me, really important to me.
“That’s something I still have with me that will never leave. And that comes from no place else but Mississippi.”
The boy who once called play-by-play for those electric football games so many years ago might no longer be in Mississippi, but it is obvious that Mississippi has never left the boy. – MSM