Tom Leach at the NCAA Tournament. Credit: Michael Grant Tom Leach (Photo by Michael Grant)
By Michael Grant on

ST. LOUIS – Friday was supposed to be an early workday for Tom Leach. 

The University of Kentucky basketball team played the first game at Enterprise Center. With a tip-off scheduled for 11:15 a.m. local time, the voice of the Wildcats could take it easy for the rest of the day. However, nothing went as planned. Instead of broadcasting just one NCAA Tournament game, he was on the air for three. 

Leach was called into emergency duty when Westwood One radio’s Nate Gatter couldn’t continue for the evening session. He stepped in to call the Purdue vs. Queens and Miami vs. Missouri matchups. 

“I was just back at the hotel,” Leach said. “A friend of mine who works for Westwood One gave me a call and said that their play-by-play guy here had lost his voice, and unless he got it back, they would need somebody. He asked if I could fill in, so I was eager to do that. I appreciated the call.”

It had already been a longer-than-usual day for Leach. He called the Wildcats’ overtime thriller, highlighted by Otega Oweh’s buzzer-beating prayer to force the extra session. Now, he needed to get up to speed on teams he hadn’t expected to broadcast and work with a crew he hadn’t anticipated. This might sound daunting, but Leach has pinch-hit before. He has filled in previously during the SEC Tournament and during football season. 

On Friday, it was helpful that Leach was already familiar with Missouri, which Kentucky faced twice during the SEC regular season. He also knew Purdue because the Wildcats played the Boilermakers in an exhibition game in October. However, he wasn’t as knowledgeable about Miami and Queens. Still, Leach is a quick learner and watches a lot of college basketball.

He compared this experience to broadcasting high school games.

“It was a little like doing the high school state tournament in Kentucky, where you haven’t had any experience doing the teams, and you don’t have a lot of prep work done for them,” Leach said. “It takes you a little while to kind of learn the names as you’re doing the game. I was constantly looking down to get familiar, especially in the first game. If you’re preparing for a game, you spend a couple of days doing that, to have a better handle on the names by the time you get to the broadcast. I kind of got thrown into this about an hour and a half before tip-off.”

Leach also had to quickly build chemistry with Westwood One analyst Jordan Cornette. He had interviewed Cornette before, but this was their first time working together as a broadcasting team.

“He is a tremendous pro,” Leach said of Cornette. “We stepped on each other a few times, but that didn’t seem to happen too often, which is good. He was great.”

Cornette is used to this. Before Friday, he had also never worked with Gatter. 

“We just had to find our groove,” Cornette said of teaming up with Leach. “In radio, it’s a very different medium from TV. You’ve got to pick and choose your spots. I’m pretty good at picking up the cadence of somebody really quickly. I felt like with Tom, ‘OK, I understand how he approaches it, let me adjust and make it seamless so we can make this thing work together.’ I hope the listeners out there felt it was a seamless listening experience.”

By the time Leach was done, he left Enterprise Center around midnight Central time.

“Adrenaline is a wonderful, powerful thing,” he said. 

About Michael Grant

Born in Jamaica. Grew up in New York City. Lives in Louisville, Ky. Sports writer. Not related to Ulysses S. Grant.

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