This week, NYP TV Sports’ Andrew Marchand spoke with Ted Robinson, the multi-sport broadcaster for NBC, USA and MSG/FSN. The 47-year-old Robinson spoke from Greece, where he is working his fourth Olympics.
Q: You’re about to finish a three-month stretch in which you’ve taken 24 flights and traveled 60,000 miles to broadcast the Olympics, the U.S. Olympic Trials, U.S. Open golf, Wimbledon, the French Open and the Mets. How has it been for you?
A: I know in October, when I go home, it is going to be very disconcerting to go into the shower and the soap is not wrapped.
Q: What’s been the biggest highlight?
A: The Olympics. The biggest highlight is being somewhere where you can see two [Greek] divers unexpectedly win a gold medal and have everyone in the arena, including the volunteers, having a party. Any pretense of impartiality was gone. That’s pretty cool. When you see what the Olympics mean to these countries. We tend to get a little dispassionate about it in America, but it ain’t that way in the rest of the world.
Q: What’s been the worst part?
A: Packing and unpacking and remembering what clothes I had in what place. I have probably had 10 occasions this summer where I have gotten somewhere and realized I didn’t have something. The funny part is, I couldn’t even remember where I left it. Is it in New York? Is it in California? Is it in the bag I left at Shea? At Wimbledon? That’s been horrible. I’ve decided that for next summer I’m just going to have three different sets of clothes.
Q: You have been in Greece, though, for a while now.
A: All I know is that I have been here for more than two weeks and I asked them yesterday to give me a ride to the airport because I’m having withdrawal. I just want to walk through the airport so I feel like I’m home again.
Q: What is the take over in Greece on the Victor Zambrano-Scott Kazmir trade?
A: In the NBC complex here, on some days, I can’t walk 100 feet down the hall without being stopped by a Met fan, and that is the No. 1 question: “What was that all about?” So obviously, this morning [Tuesday,] when I heard about Kazmir’s win, I didn’t get in here for more than 60 seconds without people saying, “Did you see what Kazmir did?” The word travels fast. The thing I’ve learned is that there are Met fans everywhere and they are incredibly passionate group.
It is hard to be away from a team you cover for this long. For the last three weeks, I have probably read every word Mark Hale has written in The Post. I could probably recite his stories back to him.
