BY MIKE LUCAS
UWBadgers.com Senior Writer
MADISON, Wis. — With Thin Lizzy blaring "The Boy are Back in Town" from the sideline speakers — "Guess who just got back today; them wide-eyed boys that had been away" — Matt Lepay surveyed the blank scoreboard and empty seats of Camp Randall Stadium from his perch in Section U, Row 70.
On a cloudless Tuesday morning, the split-squad Wisconsin practice featured mostly players from the two-deep in helmets, shirts and shorts. As it was nearing a conclusion, Lepay was moved to pull out his cell phone and take some pictures of the storied facility that rocks like no other on game days.
"It probably sounds a little overly dramatic," later conceded Lepay, the longtime radio play-by-play announcer for UW football and basketball. "But it means a lot — to all of us who are in any way connected (with the program) — and I feel sick for the players. I just feel sick for them.
"We're watching them these last couple of days and wondering, 'Are they even going to get a chance to perform?' It was a weird feeling walking in here. It gave you a little bit of normalcy, I guess. But at the same time there were some clouds and I'm thinking, 'Are we coming back here tomorrow?'
"And I guess we got the answer to that."
Tuesday afternoon, the Big Ten postponed all fall sports, including football.
For the first time since 1994, the Voice of the Badgers will be muted in the fall.
"I was hopeful that maybe they would keep kicking the can," Lepay said of the conference presidents and chancellors. "There was talk that maybe they would delay the start of the season until the end of September. But to be brutally honest, I have not been optimistic for a couple of months.
"I know what the numbers have been and you talk to enough people, not just at the UW, but elsewhere and here of late with the concerns about the heart issues (myocarditis) that could develop from COVID, I just had a bad feeling. It's still a jolt to hear it. But I can't say that I'm surprised by it."
There's so much that goes into the preparation for an opener or any game for an accomplished broadcasting professional like Lepay, a 10-time Sportscaster of the Year in the state of Wisconsin. And the investment goes well beyond what is shared over three-plus hours on the air.
"You'll miss all of it," said the 58-year-old Lepay. "You'll miss looking at video of the upcoming opponent, putting together charts, calling our counterparts — play-by-play and color analysts during the week — and just comparing notes, not giving away state secrets.
"If it's an 11 o'clock game, you work the game and you do all the postgame stuff and then you come home and put some burgers on the grill and watch the primetime game. That's just a part of how I and many others tend to spend a fall Saturday. And knowing it's not going to be there …
"I'll say this, when we get on the other side of it (the coronavirus pandemic) — hopefully sooner than later — and football comes back, I would like to think we'll all appreciate it more than ever."
For now, he's referring to it all as an unplanned sabbatical.
"You try to make the best of it," said Lepay, a member of the Milwaukee Brewers telecasts with Brian Anderson and Bill Schroeder since 2014. "I'm lucky there will probably be some baseball opportunities — hopefully if they're still playing and everything can trend in a better direction.
"But there's nothing like driving to Camp Randall on the morning or the afternoon of a game — whatever the kickoff time is — and just watching people, the tailgates and party atmosphere that is there. To me, there's nothing that beats that and not to have it is a gut punch.
"But above all else you just feel sick for the players, coaches and everyone directly affected.
"It's going to be a weird, weird fall."
Anticipating perhaps the fate of the 2020 season, Lepay watched replays of the 1999 and 2000 Rose Bowls last weekend. He also found himself on YouTube listening to U2 and "Where the Streets have No Name" — the anthem that leads the players out of the tunnel before home kickoffs.
"I was watching all of that," he volunteered.
And then, there was this: Lepay's call on Oct. 16, 2010 from Camp Randall Stadium.
With Michael Leckrone cranking up the band in the north end zone as the backdrop …
"For the first time in 13 years … a top-ranked team comes to town … the kick is in the air … Gilreath will have an opportunity … He'll catch at the 3 … between the hash marks … 10, slicing left, 15 …across the 20 … 25, 30 … Gilreath to the 40 … He's to the 50 … footrace to the house … at the 30 … at the 20 … 10, 5, touchdown, Wisconsin! … And this game is underway with a bang!"
David Gilreath's 97-yard kickoff return against No. 1 Ohio State still induces goosebumps.
No matter how many times it's revisited.
Take it from The Voice.
"I watched Gilreath's return for the five millionth time last weekend," confided Lepay, an Ohio native and Ohio State grad, "and I got kind of emotional watching it and I'm not BS-ing you."
Meanwhile, the prospect of playing football this spring has been broached by the Big Ten.
"I know Paul's line — hope is not a method," Lepay said of UW head coach Paul Chryst. "I have to hold out hope for that (the spring). That they can come up with a plan or the medical folks can come up with a viable therapeutic, if not a vaccine, that gives these kids a chance to play and do what they love.
"We should all hold out a little bit of hope."
Lepay's wife, Linda, has been impacted by the pandemic, too. As a faculty associate, a director of consumer finance and financial planning in the School of Human Ecology, she teaches on the UW campus. Her virtual classes have been online since mid-March and it will be no different this fall.
"It's doable," he said. "But she loves being in the classroom interacting with students."
On Saturday night, Matt Lepay will take over the Brewers play-by-play from Anderson, who will be on an NBA assignment. As a concession to the Age of COVID, Lepay will sit alongside of Schroeder in their FOX Sports Wisconsin booth at Miller Park in Milwaukee.
Working off a handful of monitors — including a producer-director iso cam for select graphics, a Robo cam and an All-9 screen, similar to football's All-22 view of the entire field — Lepay and Schroeder will broadcast the game between the Brewers and Chicago Cubs in Wrigley Field.
"It's doable, not ideal, but it's doable," said Lepay, who's scheduled to do the final two games of the Cubs series and three games between the Brewers and Twins next week. "In the end, the listener or viewer doesn't care (about the broadcast's logistics). Just do the best you can."
And if you mess up? "Make fun of yourself," he said with a grin. "BA (Anderson) was saying, and I fully understand it, you have to slow down a little bit because there are still certain things you're not going to see on the monitors — if the ball is in the corner or whether it cleared the fence."
Falling back on some of his Badgers experiences as far as calling a game from a screen, Lepay recounted, "At the Orange Bowl (2017), our booth location was buried deep in a corner of the stadium. Trying to call it with the naked eye or even a good pair of binoculars was only going to work so well."
Moreover, Wisconsin played Miami again in the 2018 Pinstripe Bowl which was staged at Yankee Stadium in New York. Lepay worked out of a radio booth behind home plate and had to adjust his call to a unique end zone sight line. It was doable. If only the 2020 football season was.
"I'd give anything for this to be right or doable for these guys to go play and for us to watch them and tell their stories," he said wistfully. "But sadly, life doesn't always work that way. We'll hold out hope that they can figure it out, that's it's doable, most importantly for the players.
"That's a big ask to play in the spring and come back in the fall. But hopefully there's a way."
At 9:48 Tuesday morning, Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez slowly walked on to the Camp Randall turf and chatted briefly with Chryst. Both wore masks. But there was no masking their body language. A little over 30 minutes later, the practice ended. So did the season for these players.
As Lepay readjusted his own mask, he took another look around Camp Randall before leaving.
Speaking to his vast inventory of memories from the stadium, he said, "We're lucky we've been able to witness all of it. And I'm going to try to cling to that looking forward to the day when everybody is together again and we're talking about a third down call or a great run by Nakia Watson … Or whoever it is.
"I'm really looking forward to that day."
He was not alone on this day, the saddest of all days.
