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ESPN's Ward quietly broadcasting history

You might know her voice . . . or think you do. Wasn't that Robin Roberts calling the Mountain West Championship Game Saturday between Brigham Young and Hawaii? Or wait, maybe it was Mary Carillo.

Nope. It was one of the most anonymous pioneers in broadcasting history.

For a year, Pam Ward has called college football games for ESPN, and people still can't figure out who she is -- or that she's not who they think she is.

"Robin has told me people come up to her and say, "So, you're doing football now. ... ', " Ward said.

But Ward, who not too long ago still was working Christmas and other holidays as the No. 3 sportscaster at Baltimore's WBAL radio and TV stations, is the only woman calling college football on national television. Amazingly, the feat has generated minimal attention and none of what celebrity-mongers call "buzz."

That's partly because most of her games are out West and escape the attention of East Coast viewers. But it's partly by design. Before Ward called her first game, ESPN's public-relations staff hardly uttered a peep.

"It was a mutual decision," said Ward, a 1984 Maryland graduate. "I wasn't doing it as a publicity stunt. I took this very seriously. . . . I didn't want to do one game and be a footnote. I didn't want any extra attention, and they didn't want it either."

The assignment wasn't offered; she asked for it. Originally hired four years ago from Baltimore to work for ESPNNews, Ward's role evolved into "basically a fill-in person," mostly on studio shows. She also had called women's basketball games for ESPN.

Football is what she always had wanted to do, so last year she asked for a chance to try it. "To my pleasant surprise," she said, network officials said yes.

It turns out she is good at it. Not only can she call the game with confidence, but her voice is deep and smooth and not jarring, which she acknowledges is a key factor in helping viewers get used to listening to a female announcer.

She said she hasn't gotten much feedback from ESPN, but "I think the best feedback you can get is they keep giving me games. It shows I must be doing something right." With BYU then one of two unbeaten teams left, Saturday's game was her most high profile yet.

Ward said what she hears from fans is overwhelmingly positive. Like the time she arrived in Hawaii, and the guy at the rental-car shuttle grabbed her bags and told her he and his buddies had talked about how much they liked her work. "He knew my name and everything," she said.

Ward, who has three years left on her ESPN contract, wants to do a season of football next year and she hopes to break into the NFL someday.

"People have asked me (about being) a chick doing football," she said. "I'm just doing a job.

"Most people don't understand that most of the guys who do play-by-play in other sports don't play the game. For me to do it is not that big of a stretch. You just have to know it. It's just being a good broadcaster."

BUCS RATINGS: The Bucs' 10 games on Fox are averaging a 24.2 rating in the Tampa Bay market, an increase of 22 percent from last year's 13-game average of 19.8. That's the third-best average Fox local rating, behind Milwaukee and New Orleans. One ratings point equals 1 percentage of the market's households with TVs.

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