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Former Duke Assistant Bob Wenzel Works For CBS's International Broadcast
April 2, 2004
by John Roth
Blue Devil Weekly
SAN ANTONIO - As Duke prepared to meet Notre Dame in the 1978 Final Four at St. Louis, then-assistant coach Bob Wenzel remembers being enveloped by a feeling of panic.
"I had a nightmare that everything went wrong," he recalled Friday afternoon. "We couldn't catch the ball, we couldn't pass the ball, we couldn't make a shot. And of course it was just nerves, I guess. Then once you win that game and you're in the national championship game, words don't describe that kind of thing."
Wenzel now must find the words to describe exactly that kind of thing. He is in San Antonio working as the analyst for the NCAA's international television broadcast of the Final Four. If Duke freshman Luol Deng's mother and siblings tune in to the Duke-Connecticut game Saturday afternoon at their home in London, they will hear Wenzel's evaluation of the action instead of CBS Sports' Billy Packer.
Wenzel has been a television analyst since concluding his coaching career five years ago. He works regular season games in the Big East and Atlantic 10 conferences for ESPN, ESPN Regional and CBS. For the last four years he has worked the first two rounds of the NCAA tourney for CBS as well as the Final Four for the international telecast.
"It goes to 50-something countries internationally," Wenzel explained as he watched Friday afternoon's Final Four team practice sessions at the Alamodome. "Some countries have delays on them, so in the Orient and in some Hispanic countries, there will be someone sitting there translating what we say into their language. It's a kick. It's great that I get to be here and do the games.
"Actually it's a little bit harder than a normal game because some countries have commercials and some don't. During the commercial time, usually announcers can sit back and regain their composure, but we have to keep going. It's an interesting set up and fun."
Wenzel got into television almost immediately after he finished his head coaching tenure at Rutgers five years ago. After calling a producer at CBS, he was invited to their New York studios on Selection Sunday and watched the final conference tournament games of the year, providing information to the network's studio personnel. The next year he started working games and this year had a full slate of 42 broadcasts on his schedule, including the Final Four.
"Television is interesting because you have to avoid coach-speak," he said. "For the general fan, you have to explain things in English, not the jargon coaches use. That's why some coaches have difficulty in the television business. You have to know your subject matter but you also have to know television. That's what I'm still learning."
At Duke, Wenzel was an assistant to former coach Bill Foster and helped the Blue Devils to three NCAA Tournaments and two ACC tourney titles in the staff's final three years, 1978-80. The 1978 Final Four run was a Cinderella story for a program that had experienced five straight losing ACC seasons. The Devils defeated Notre Dame in the semis at the Checkerdome in St. Louis before falling to Kentucky in the national title game.
"I remember that on our way there we had two very close calls," Wenzel said. "Rhode Island and Penn almost beat us. I remember Kenny Dennard's reverse dunk against Villanova, which was fabulous. And of course I remember all the personalities of the players. Gminski and Spanarkel were such great players, Banks had his unique style of doing things and it was a unique group. The book Forever's Team was written about that group.
"It's much bigger now than it was then. I go to every Final Four and the circumstances surrounding it have changed, but the magnitude of the event itself and playing for the national championship remains. I thought there was much less stress involved in playing in the national championship game than in the games the first day."
Wenzel anticipates an interesting matchup between Duke and Connecticut in Saturday's semifinals.
"For Connecticut, Luol Deng is a tough matchup for them," he said. "The guys that play the three spot for them are not big enough to play him. I think Connecticut is a little deeper than Duke is. I hear all this buzz that Emeka Okafor is fine but he's not fine. I do a lot of their games and he looks about 70 percent. I think Shelden Williams can do good things against an Okafor that's 70 percent.
"Then the Chris Duhon-Ben Gordon thing will be interesting to watch. Ben Gordon last year was a reluctant superstar, a guy who could everything but just let the game come to him too much. He needed to take the bull by the horns and he has done that in the Big East and NCAA Tournaments. That's a tough matchup and Duhon's banged up, but he's played 36 to 38 minutes lately so it doesn't seem to be affecting him that much. That will be interesting to watch as well."
