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Familo, Granozio do their job simply for love of Le Moyne hoopsPeter Chen/ Staff photographerDON FAMILO {left) and Chris Granozio afe the announcers for Le Moyne basketball games. Thetr broadcasts can be heard onfJUMO, FROM PKt Mum, different is that they’ve worked upon airivaJ at those 26! affairs for per-game wages that could provide each of them with a hot dog. Assuming, of course, that both Chris and Don have a couple of bucks in their pockets.They are the Twin Voices Le Moyne, not to mention the door-to-door ad salesmen for the radio broadcasts. That’s who Chris Granozio and Don Familo are. And never mind, already, that th'eir winters have been filled with one-day, round-tnp drives— hey, motels aren’t free, folks— to Manchester, N.H. and to New Haven, Conn., and to Waltham, Mass., and to Smithfield, R.I., and to Burlington, Vt., and to other such ports of call. These two work for free. Well, for gas money paid to them out of that ad revenue, anyway. And they love it.“We’re getting all the fun out of this without any of the pressure.” Familo. a project manager for IBM. said the other day. “We’re not doing Division 1 ball with 300 people waiting for us to make a mistake so they can take the job away from us. We don't have people criticizing every-thina: we say and do By helpingto legitimize the Le Moyne basketball program, we’re giving something back to the school that goes beyond writing a check every year.”Nice. The words were vety nice. And while the earnest Fam-ilo spoke, the equally earnest Granozio nodded. But there is this to consider: Don has commuted to all of these Dolphins games from his home in Mait-ville, which is somewhere in Cayuga County. And that’s been crazy enough. Bui Chris has done so from his apartment in Manhattan. Yeah, that Manhattan, The one with aU the delis. And that has been off-the-wall.Why do we do this?” repeated Granozio, who works for the New York Mels as their assistant scoreboard director at Shea Stadium. “That’s the million-dollar question. Sometimes you ask yourself if it’s really worth it to drive all around like we do. But then somebody, like one of the player’s parents, will say something nice about one of the broadcasts and that gets you going again And, besides, we’re such fans of Le Moyne basketball. if we weren’t doing this we’d be dying lo know what was going on Their on-air record is 139-122. They’ve called Le Moyne’s greatest season (24-6 in 1995-96) and its worst one (5-21 in 2000-01). They’ve outdriven New England blizzards and jockeyed with Hiruway truckers. They’ve eaten too much fast food at too many rest stops and listened to too many fuzzy radio stations on too many distant roads. They’ve started their adventures on the morning of one day and finished them on the morning of the next with no sleep in between.Oh, ami in a 1994 accident in the parking lot at the University of New Haven, they each experienced a pain in the hindquarters *— one figuratively (Don totaled his car); die other literally (Chris broke bis coccyx). No matter, though. With Ids sidekick in a local hospital and his vehicle having been towed away. Familo still called the Dolphins’ game that day. Granozio, meanwhile, was back at hss microphone for Le Moyne’s next affair. Seated on a pillow, sure. And feeling as if he’d been hit in the tatlbonc by a three-wood, absolutely. But Chris was there and screaming his familiar “Bull's-eye!” whenever a Dolphin drained a three-pointer.And why not? When your labor is one of love and not for a paycheck, you fret neither the loss of a car nor the reality of a sore keister. Rather, you wotry about Stonehill’s zone or Saint Anselm’s man-to-man or Bentley’s press.., and you hope your voice will hold up. The 150,000 miles getting from here to there and back again? Who’s counting?“It’s not as easy driving home from Merrimack College at 3:30 in the morning as it was 10 years ago,” Familo said. “And suddenly, we have more in common with the players’ parents than we do with die players. And you can't make a living doing it this way. But what can I say? 1 think this is a great job or hobby or whatever you want to call it And I’m having a lot of fan.”“AH I can tell you,” said Granozio, “is that if Tm at Shea Stadium for too many days in a row, I get wanderlust. I want to get out on the road again. I saw my first Le Moyne game as a freshman in 1982 — Dolphins vs. Cortland. And I’ve been hooked ever since.”They’ll be on the air this afternoon beginning at 3 p.m when Le Moyne will play host to iheWHEN-AM 620,Franklin Pierce Ravens at Ted Grant Court And on Monday morning, they’ll head off to Southern New Hampshire University before driving, within minutes of game’s end. through the wee hours back to Martviile and to Manhattan. This is the basketball season, after all. andthis is whai Chns Granozio and •Don Familo do... and have done for a decade now.Share a salad bar with them ai your own nskBod Pc/'Qum is a coiurr st to' The Pos;-S’a-da'd His co'jT'” /ooea'S -eqj'ady on i-’Sse oeges He can be reatiieo vm :eer)1'0ea; 315 470 22t3o'vae-«a •n boo q..rlt;si/-at.isr co—
Newspaper Details
Syracuse Post Standard
Syracuse, New York, US
Sat, Jan 19, 2002
Page 104
Full Page
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California, DZ 27 May 2025
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