Kenny Albert’s schedule: Last Sunday, Giants-Washington Football team. This Sunday, Steelers-Bengals.
In between: Northern Valley Demarest High School (Bergen County) vs. Dumont.
Albert’s two daughters have attended Northern Valley, which resulted in Albert striking up a friendship with the school’s athletic director, Greg Butler. With the pandemic, the school has allowed limited fans so they are streaming the games with no audio.
Albert texted Butler, half jokingly, saying if there are any football games that fall on a Thursday, he’d be available. And so, here he is.
Albert is a pro’s pro. He is the radio voice of the Rangers, a leading candidate to replace Doc Emrick on NBC’s NHL Stanley Cup coverage and a longtime Fox NFL/MLB voice, among other assignments.
So, while he is putting together his game board for the undefeated Steelers vs. Joe Burrow’s Bengals, he is marking up his high school board. He also attended a practice and is speaking with both coaches.
Kenny Albert has begun his preparation for the high school game and Steelers-Bengals.Courtesy of Kenny Albert“The biggest thing is pronunciation,” Albert said. “I know a lot of the parents and the families are going to be watching and can’t be at the games. You don’t want to pronounce a kids’ name incorrectly. It might be the only time on a YouTube livestream in their life. It is actually harder than preparing for an NFL game because you are not familiar with the names and numbers.”
Eli coming
Eli Manning will be on TNT’s pre-match golf coverage as his brother, Peyton, Stephen Curry, Charles Barkley and Phil Mickelson compete the day after Thanksgiving.
Manning has never stuck out as someone who could translate to an NFL booth, but this will give us a chance to see if there is more personality to him than he showed when he went with the Derek Jeter approach of being mostly politely bland as an active player.
