From the podcast: NESCAC broadcaster Rich MacDonough

NESCAC broadcaster Rich MacDonough joins Kyle Devitte and Jack Piatelli on this episode of the "Chasing The Goal" podcast.

On this week’s episode of New England Lacrosse Journal’s “Chasing The Goal” podcast, hosts Kyle Devitte and Jack Piatelli were joined by NESCAC broadcaster and coach Rich MacDonough.

MacDonough recently broke into broadcasting NESCAC games after asking about the job through a mutual friend and contact.

However, he has a deep lacrosse history. The former lawyer and now real estate investment specialist has coached some form or level of lacrosse for nearly 20 years.

A Maryland native, MacDonough played goalie at Fairfield University and went on to coach at St. John’s in Maryland and the MadLax club program.

After moving up to New Hampshire, MacDonough coached at Hollis-Brookline (N.H.) High School as well as with the NH Tomahawks club program.

This season he has called over a dozen games for the network, including the recent semifinals at Tufts.

Watch the full podcast below on YouTube. It’s also available on all major podcast platforms. If you enjoy it, please leave a rating and a review. Watch more episodes on the Chasing the Goal podcast channel.

Here are some excerpts from the pod.

Kyle Devitte: What drew you to the NESCAC and how did you get into broadcasting lacrosse? 

Rich MacDonough: Well, I’ll give you the short story on getting involved on TV, and then we can get into some other DNA lineage type of thing.

I’m a lacrosse junkie. I think we all are. And I was doing some work in southern New Hampshire where I live, in Hollis, and I got involved in calling games for Nashua ETV, which is a regional public television station. They do a really good job of covering local sports.

I did the high school hockey finals. I did the junior high school Nashua city championship, which was a blast. And I’ve gotten to work with (longtime Nashua Telegraph sportswriter) Tom King, who you may know. We’ve had a real, real good experience. It was all primer for me doing some lacrosse for them this spring and beyond maybe.

And I’d like to see these games anyway. So why not get together and call the games? So I was doing (public address) for football games for my son, who’s at Bishop Guertin. And I’m sitting there going, “I’m enjoying this.” My wife is looking at me going, “He’s enjoying this.”

What can I do? So I looked up a couple of the regional networks and found that one of my old dear friends, who was a teacher at one of the academies in Vermont, had started Northeast Sports Network. So I said, “Hey, can you put us in touch?” And I told her why. And I asked, “Am I crazy?” And she goes, “Well, you’re a goalie, you might be crazy. … And sure, I’ll put you together.”

And by that afternoon they asked me to do Northeas-10 and NESCAC work, and the rest is history and progress.

Jack Piatelli: Talk about the preparation. How much do you put the time into preparing for the games? Getting to know the rosters and obviously their win-loss record and the coaches and so on and so forth. 

RM: Well, I’m kind of weird. I like doing this stuff. I really do. I would stay up until 2 in the morning even when I was coaching Hollis-Brookline, and just watch the tape and slo-mo it to look for tendencies. So, the rule of thumb is generally saying two hours (preparation) for every one hour you’re in the booth. I don’t think I’m very good yet. So, I found myself doing three hours or more per hour in the booth. One, because I like it and two, I’m afraid that I don’t know enough and I want to pack it all in.

I’m also a lawyer, so I’m kind of assiduous about the research now. I’m a long-recovered lawyer, thank god, and been in commercial real estate for a long time. But I probably overprepare  and I don’t know that it’s a bad thing. I think eventually it’ll be unnecessary. But I watched segments of six games to prepare for Tufts, Middlebury and the whole NESCAC weekend. Here you watch them versus different teams. How do they adapt to different styles? Tufts doesn’t have to adapt to anybody’s style.

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