For fans of the NBA’s Sacramento Kings, Gary Gerould is the play-by-play voice on the radio. For racing fans, Gary Gerould is a pit reporter on ESPN2’s coverage of the NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series. Two very different sports, one guy.

Gerould has with the Kings since they came to California in 1985 and has called nearly 2,000 games. He’s been on ESPN since 1990, covering NASCAR, IndyCar, CART and other forms of racing in addition to his current role.  Since the NHRA and NBA seasons overlap in both the spring and fall, Gerould sometimes finds himself travelling from court to track and back again.  How does he keep it straight?

“I tell myself ‘engage the racing brain,’ and ‘engage the basketball brain,’” he said. ”Over a period of time you find shortcuts that help. But by the same token, doing three games in a week, then suddenly you’re at a racetrack, then you’ve got to shift gears a little bit.  I work very hard to stay up to speed on what’s going on with rule changes, driver changes, crew chief changes, so that when I get on site, the seed has been planted.  Having done 80-plus basketball games for 25 years, it’s more a discipline of getting your homework done and updating stats.  You’re with these guys, you travel with them on the plane, and so you have opportunities to ask them about things.”

If Gerould has to miss a Kings game to work a drag racing event, he keeps up by watching ESPN and checking box scores online. And while he’s with the Kings, he reads racing websites on a daily basis. He may miss eight or so games during the regular season, but has the full support of the Kings organization.

“I’ve been so fortunate because right from when I first started with the Kings, I was involved with NBC and I had to have certain latitude because of previous commitments, and they allowed it,” he said. “Over 25 years, they’ve continued to give me that. I greatly appreciate it.”

Naturally, Gerould is often asked if he prefers basketball or racing. “My answer is that I like everything that I do,” he said. “I’m that kind of a person. I want to find enjoyment in what I do and have a passion for it.  Also, when you start to get ground down by an 82-game basketball season, or a 23-weekend race season, you go to the other one, and it recharges you, and gives you a fresh outlook.”

Almost 40 years ago, fans at minor league hockey games in Hershey, Pa., got something extra for their $1.50 admission – live play-by-play by a future ESPN announcer.

On the top row of Hershey Arena, where Wilt Chamberlain had his famous 100-point game, 15-year-old Marty Reid was watching the Hershey Bears of the American Hockey League and doing play-by-play into a tape recorder he had received for his birthday. His best friend was his color analyst. Reid was practicing for what he hoped would be his future career, and the fans sitting nearby enjoyed the show.

“A couple of times my mother would go with us and she’d say ‘oh Marty, stop this, you’re bothering the people around you,’” said Reid, who joined ESPN in 1982 and now calls NASCAR Nationwide Series and IndyCar Series telecasts for the network. “Luckily the people around didn’t mind and would say ‘no, no, let him go.’

“I’ve got to believe that knowing what I sounded like back then, some of them were just being kind,” he said. “They were cutting me some slack because I was just a kid and maybe they were thinking ‘he’s not out somewhere getting in trouble.’”

Like many kids growing up in Pennsylvania, Reid played ice hockey and loved the sport. But he recognized that he did not have the talent to go pro, so he turned his attention to broadcasting after his older brother, a disc jockey, had 13-year-old Marty cut a radio commercial with him.

“When you’re 13 years old and you say you want to get into sports play by play, people say, ‘oh, that’s nice, next week he’ll want to be a something else,’” he said.

But Reid took it seriously. “I’d do the game and take it back and listen to it over and over and over and literally practiced over and over,” he said.

Though the Bears never knew what he was doing, others did, including his high school guidance counselor. The counselor contacted Marietta (Ohio) College, which led to Reid being recruited to attend the broadcasting school. His experience gave him a leg up on other students and as a freshman he immediately started doing radio and TV play-by-play for all Marietta sports. He moved on to do local TV sports in Columbus, Ohio, and then ESPN, where he has worked on a variety of sports over the years, including calling one NHL game.

“By the time I was 15, people who really knew me knew I loved sports,” he said. “Back then there was no ESPN, and little motorsports coverage, so I was practicing to do stick and ball sports, just like everybody else, but it all sort of worked out.”

When Dave Burns grew up in Kalamazoo, Mich., his father was a racing fan who instilled a love for the sport in his son. That included a family outing in 1971 to Michigan International Speedway, site of this weekend’s NASCAR Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series races. Burns will be a pit reporter on ESPN’s live coverage of the two races.

The race that day was a doubleheader featuring Indy cars and stock cars, and the Burns famil, including 8-year old Dave, loaded into its station wagon before dawn for the cross-state journey to MIS. “We brought a big picnic lunch and between the races we went back to the car and ate,” he recalls. “I think that was the first time I ever tailgated. It was a significant day in my racing upbringing.”

Though he relocated to the Charlotte area years ago for his job in racing, Burns always looks forward to returning to his home state to cover races at the 2-mile superspeedway.

“It’s just very comfortable to me to be in Michigan,” he states. “No matter what happens, I’m somewhere I know very well.”

And that includes the local delicacies – especially sweet corn.  

One of the traditions of the August NASCAR race weekend at MIS is a corn roast in the garage area for the race teams. Freshly-harvested Michigan sweet corn is served, complete with plenty of butter.  Drivers, crew members and others can be seen walking around eating a roasted ear of corn or wiping the butter from their fingers.

“I remember many meals growing up that consisted of just sweet corn,” he says. “And to see all of the people in the garage area excited to have some good Michigan sweet corn, well, it’s just something else that makes me proud to be where I’m from.”