You might have heard them talking about your favorite band, letting you know what’s happening in Seattle or nerding out on your morning drive, but this weekend, 107.7 The End DJs Gregr and Manley take on a whole new challenge: announcing professional soccer.
The two close friends take their first crack at soccer broadcasting this weekend as they add their voices to the live stream of Sounders FC 2 vs. Timbers 2 on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. PT. The pair is the third team to enter the booth this season, joining duos of Payton Berens with Drew Wallen and Nathan Murphy with Aaron Heinzen.
To get to know this weekend’s broadcast team a little better, SoundersFC.com sat down with the guys for a Q&A.
GREGR
How do you and Manley know each other?
Gregr: We have worked at a handful of similar stations, but never at the same time until we got to Seattle. We had the same mentor and a long history over the last 10 years of being at the same stations. We are actually next-door neighbors, too. I live literally right across the street from him.
Have you always been a soccer fan? Where did your passion come from?
Gregr: Since we’re neighbors and he’s a Liverpool fan and I’m an Arsenal fan, we easily get together in the mornings and he’ll make breakfast and I’ll come across the street so we can watch games together which is neat.
My dad is from Europe so he had me playing soccer as a kid until I got to high school. Ten years later, after always watching the World Cups, I caught a soccer match on TV once and it happened to be Arsenal and I recognized a couple of the guys on the pitch like Robin van Persie. It would be random Wednesdays that I would see them and I decided almost ten years ago to really get into the Barclay’s Premier League.
Then right before I moved to Seattle I learned about the Sounders from a guy who I was interviewing for a job with and I got really excited. I watched the first ever match in 2009 from Las Vegas and texted the guy, and he called me a couple days later and told me I was hired so I caught the third home match in the history of the club, which was incredible. I have been following along ever since.
Who do you look up to in the broadcast world?
Gregr: It’s so funny because I have become pretty good buds with Ross Fletcher from doing a segment with him over the last several years. Hearing him do it, having met Arlo White a few times and hearing Kasey Keller start from scratch and work his way through it over the years has been pretty cool. I have always admired the storytelling, like Rick Rizzs for the Mariners, which gives a narrative to sports on the radio.
What is your favorite moment in Sounders FC history?
Gregr: There are so many, like when David Estrada scored a hat trick or when Chad Barrett came on as a sub in the first home game of last season and scored in stoppage time and came over to celebrate in front of us. But my favorite of all time is when Roger Levesque scored and right in front of our seats he got on the ad board and did the famous scuba celebration. If you look at the pictures of it I think you can see a bunch of us behind him screaming our heads off.
Are you excited for this opportunity?
Gregr: We are so grateful to be able to use our footprint in the city to help other people get an opportunity to broadcast. The fact you would consider two knuckleheads who do radio and goof-off for a living as someone that could help raise the name of the Sounders is an honor in itself. I am so glad we can help use our platform to excel this one.
MANLEY
Are you nervous for Saturday at all?
Manley: It’s a good kind of nervous! I’m not too worried about embarrassing my family or anything like that, but I have watched the other two broadcasts and the guys were fantastic! The bar was set, and as the professionals in the group, I feel very responsible that we have to represent big time.
How did you first get into soccer?
Manley: My first recollection of soccer was back in 1994 when the World Cup was in America. I had a bunch of my Italian family in town at the time and we watched Roberto Baggio miss a penalty kick 500 feet over the net to lose the World Cup for Italy. And I remember seeing my uncles, grown men, crying and I thought for the first time, maybe there is something to this soccer thing.
Years later, my younger brother got a college soccer scholarship so I figured if I wanted to be a good older brother, I needed to learn the sport. I went and bought FIFA for the PlayStation, and because he loved Michael Owen of Liverpool at the time, that’s the team I played with.
So FIFA is the main way you learned how to watch soccer?
Manley: I learned how to play the game and what to look for via FIFA, and over time it went from only knowing soccer through a video game, to getting up at four in the morning to watch the World Cup played in Korea and finding bars to watch Liverpool. I’ve been to Anfield and watched matches in Italy and now it’s one of my favorite sports.
What is your relationship with Sounders FC?
Manley: Moving up here from the Midwest, I couldn’t change my allegiances from my sports teams back there, but the Sounders were a natural fit and guys I knew from watching the EPL like Clint Dempsey and Obafemi Martins were up here and I felt like I could really connect with the team.
As someone who has been to matches in Europe, the first match I came to in Seattle was right in the front row behind the goal with 50,000 people there and the ECS right next to me. It was one of the coolest moments to walk out and see the flags and I thought, “Wow, this is real, this is legit.” I fell in love at that first game I saw. It was one of the main things that convinced me to move to Seattle in the first place.
How do you hope your soccer broadcast style develops?
Manley: I hope to be myself. I like how some broadcasters really let the game speak for itself. There is a beauty in letting the game happen while mentioning the things in the game that you pick up on that people who aren’t there might not notice. As a radio guy, you realize how hard it is to not talk. It’s a lot like what I’m doing here for music radio. People aren’t here to listen to me, they are there for the songs, or on Saturday to watch the game, so if I can add to the situation or tell a story or a joke, I’ll throw it in but try not to forget at the end of the day that people are there for the music or the game, and I’m just there to enhance them.
What do your friends and family think about this opportunity?
Manley: My family couldn’t be more excited. All my soccer buddies are pumped up, too! My family remembers when I was a toddler sitting in my basement doing play-by-play to a Nintendo baseball game, and I realize it’s something I have kind of been doing my whole life. To be able to do this for real, everyone who knows me knows how excited I am for this opportunity. It’s something I have always wanted to do, and to do it for a team I love on this stage is so exciting. They are almost as excited for this as I am.
Tickets to Saturday's match are still available here, but they are going quick. Make sure you are there for all the rivalry action.
