With the iconic Joe McConnell retiring following the 2009 season, Purdue didn't have to look far to find the best candidate to take over radio play-by-play responsibilities for Boilermaker football broadcasts.

Tim Newton, part of Purdue football broadcasts since 1995, will move into McConnell's chair after previously serving as producer, as well as host of the pre-game, halftime and post-game shows. Newton has been the play-by-play voice of Boilermaker women's basketball since 1990.

A native of Silver Creek, N.Y., Newton graduated from Purdue in 1981 and currently serves as the Krannert School of Business' director of external relations and communications.

His local media background also includes media relations work for the university; time spent with the Purdue Alumni Association as editor of the Alumnus; and stints at WASK and the Lafayette Journal and Courier.

Newton will remain part of a broadcast team that will remain largely the same. Pete Quinn will remain in his color analyst's chair for his 19th year, while sideline reporter Rob Blackman will move upstairs to fill Newton's prior roles. Former Boilermaker Stuart Schweigert will serve as sideline reporter, unless an NFL opportunity arises.

Newton: "It's really something I've wanted since I was a student here. I guess the dream job when we were all growing up, all of us who wanted to be in broadcasting, was replacing Howard Cosell on 'Monday Night Football.' That didn't quite happen, but while I've been here - I've been at Purdue as either a student or covering Purdue since 1978 - I just thought since early on that the job I'd love to have was doing Purdue football.

"I hate to use the cliché 'dream come true,' but here it is."

Newton: "Well, the real story is that back in high school, they'd let students do the morning announcements. There were maybe 10 of us and you each got a couple weeks where you'd sit there and read the morning announcements. Somebody came up to me one day and said, 'You know, you sounded pretty good doing that. You should go into announcing.'

"And I love sports; I've been a sports junkie since I was 6 years old. So I thought, 'I never really thought about being a sports broadcaster, but wouldn't that be a cool way to make a living?' That's really how it started.

"All the aptitude tests you take to tell you what you're supposed to be, mine all came back 'mathematician,' and all my best test scores in school were in math. So naturally I went into broadcasting."

Newton: "It was stuff like (results) if a sports team had competed the day before or if there was a callout for a club. I don't remember if we ever had to actually do the menu thing, but it was just any school announcements that had to be made. When they asked who wanted to do it, I said, 'Why not? I'll give it a shot.'"

Newton: "Syracuse probably would have been my first choice had I had the money to go to Syracuse. Syracuse is about a three-, three-and-a-half-hour drive away, but it's a private school and there was just no way we could afford it.

"I hate to admit this in print, but in full disclosure, I was a huge Notre Dame fan growing up. So that was one of the things I always thought I'd do, go to Notre Dame and that'd be that. I did apply and was accepted at Notre Dame.

"I was looking through those huge college books, these being the days before the Internet, with all the schools and all the majors. Since I had it open to the state of Indiana and just thumbing through, there was Purdue. I knew Purdue from having played Notre Dame and I saw they had a communications school and it didn't cost anything to apply, so I applied. That was it. I didn't know anybody at Purdue or have any literature saying it was the best school in this or that.

"I applied at three schools, Purdue, Notre Dame and Bradley, and got accepted at all three, so it was just a decision of affordability and fit. I came out to visit Purdue as a senior in high school and liked it and thought it was the place for me.

"And now, it's hard to imagine loathing any school more than I loathe Notre Dame. It's just been a natural evolution."

Newton: "Well, one of them was somebody who just passed away, Ernie Harwell, because living where we did, we could get that WGR signal out of Detroit clear as a whistle. So I'd listen to Ernie Harwell and Paul Carey doing Tigers games back in the '70s. I was a Yankees fans growing up, but I always scanned the dial to see what I could hear. On a good night, if the wind was blowing the right way, I could pull in Marv Albert doing Knicks and Rangers games out of New York City. And some of the Yankees broadcasters were pretty influential because they were some of the ones I could hear.

"And on the TV side, Cosell was the reason a lot of us got into broadcasting. Love him or hate him, you watched him. I'm probably about as opposite of him in style as you can get from Howard Cosell. You go back and watch some of those old tapes of him on ESPN Classic or something and some of the stuff he says will just make you cringe, watching him do a baseball game with just his lack of knowledge. But he was the guy. Half America loved him and half America hated him, but everybody watched him, and I thought that was kind of cool."

Newton: "In a perfect world, you always want to replace the guy who replaces the legendary guy, but that's not the way it is. The only thing I know going into this - and I've talked to Joe about this a little bit - is that I'm going to be me. I can only be me. I can't try to do what Joe did, because guys like that, there aren't many of them out there, guys with an unbelievable voice, the ability to describe things the way he could and the preparation part of it.

"I can do the preparation part of it, but I can't imitate his voice. To try to do that, you're setting yourself up to fail. You just hope people will have an open mind and understand that people are different and have different styles and sounds.

"I know a lot of people have listened to women's basketball the past few years and ... I think people will enjoy the broadcasts, because we have a pretty good group put together."

Newton: "They're different. The biggest difference with football as opposed to basketball or volleyball, baseball or softball is that everything in football happens in about four or five seconds, then you have 25 or 30 seconds to explain what just happened and maybe try to guess what's coming next.

"In basketball, it's more of a continuous flow and much easier to get into a continuous flow. In football, the rhythm is really more with your color commentator in terms of ... I tell the listener what happened and the color commentator tells them why it happened and maybe what's coming next. It's about trying to be as clear and concise as can be. But it's bang-bang-bang, then the old, 'Hurry up and wait.'"

Newton: "I think so. I don't want to get a reputation or come off as a screamer. I don't think you want to be a screamer.

"One of my idols, and one of the people who's been most influential to me, was John DeCamp, who I got to know when I was in school. John gave me some really good advice when he said, 'If you're broadcasting Purdue games, it's OK for the audience to know that you're for Purdue.' He said, 'In fact, if they feel you're not for Purdue, they're going to get angry.' It doesn't mean that every call that goes against Purdue is a bad call or you have to make excuses - and you give the other team credit - but from an enthusiasm standpoint, I'm a Purdue alum and I'm a Purdue employee. You're darn right I want Purdue to win. But you still have to be honest with people.

"The other thing he told me, and it's the simplest thing, is, 'Tell them what you see.' So that if they're driving around in their car, they can almost see it the way I'm seeing it.

Newton: "I think over the years that I've mellowed a little bit there. Maybe I haven't. After a while, you just realize you can't change what you can't change. The only times I really get upset with officiating is two reasons: 1) if I don't think an official is hustling and they miss a call because they didn't put themselves in position to make it or 2) if an official tries to become bigger than the game. People don't pay to see the guys in stripes throw flags and there are some officials in both sports who probably don't share that opinion, probably more so in basketball. They are part of the show, but they need to keep the game moving.

"That's pretty much it. Sometimes I'm sitting courtside five feet away and I can't tell you who the ball went off of, so for me to complain about whether the call is right or not, I just can't do it.

"But, yeah, we're going to be honest with people. If one team's playing better - whether it's Purdue or the other team - and that's what we see, it's our obligation to tell people that."

Newton: "I kind of liken it a little bit to what Joe Tiller had when he came in, when he brought his whole staff with him. Pete and I have worked together 15 years. The spotter, the statistician, the engineer, they've all been there. Rob Blackman is coming up to do the producer stuff and he's been with us for a few years now. And we'll have (Stu) Schweigert as the sideline guy unless he's playing in the NFL. He'll be our rookie."

Newton: "That's right. I can't control anything about the game itself and I can't control whether we win, but I can control whether I'm prepared. I think that's the one thing I can promise the fans listening, that when they turn the game on Saturday afternoon or Saturday night as the case may be, they're going to know that we know what we're talking about, that we're prepared. Not only with the numbers, but also that we've talked to the coaches throughout the week and we have an idea what Purdue's going to try to do and an idea what the other team's going to try to do.

"I think it's an insult to people if you just try to slap a headset on every week and expect to come across as knowledgeable.

"It's the old cliché, really: If you're not prepared to put in the time, then you're really not prepared to do the job."

Newton: "Yeah, I've never been a big catchphrase guy. A lot of what you do is just so spontaneous. If you try to come up with clichés and catchphrases, they become hackneyed after a while. There are sometimes, though, you'll just come up with stuff that catches on.

"I know Larry (Clisby's) thing for a three-point shot is, 'Bullseye!' I'm sure he just went to it at some point and it worked for him. For me, it's been, 'Bingo!' I don't know where it came from.

"There might be some things like that, but I'm not going to try to make the 'SportsCenter' highlights every week. I'm not of that school. I think the game speaks for itself. It's like what (DeCamp) said, 'Just tell them what you see.'"

Newton: "That's exactly right. When we won the national championship in women's basketball, I had absolutely no idea what I was going to say until I opened my mouth and the words came out. Whatever I said there in those last couple seconds was all spontaneous. I didn't have something written on the back of my hand or something to work in. What I said was what I said."

Newton: "That's right, and the interesting perspective I have on all this is that working at Purdue full-time, I actually met with Marve and his dad on his recruiting trip here, along with our dean and some people from our undergraduate advising staff.

"I've done a little bit of that with football and with men's and women's basketball. Sometimes if kids are interested in management, sometimes the coaches will ask me to give them a quick overview of the program and facilities tour. I've had Robbie Hummel and JaJuan Johnson through here. Now, I'm not batting 1,000, because I also had Tyler Zeller. I had three visits with him and that didn't quite work out.

"But it's interesting to see these kids on the front side and get to meet their families. You see a different side.

"And working on the academic side (of the university) gives me a different perspective in general. I understand how athletics are supposed to fit in at a university and I understand that even though they're maybe not the most important thing we do, they're the biggest window they see your school through."

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