Episode 8: Mavs PA Announcer Sean Heath is in the house to spill the tea from behind the mic

In this episode of the It's A Lot Y'all podcast we have Sean Heath, NBA PA Announcer for the Dallas Mavericks and on-camera talent for the Dallas Cowboys, as our special guest. We visit with Sean about what its like being an NBA PA Announcer and the crazy way he scored the gig. He also tells us how he comes up with some of his favorite signature sayings. Plus, we discuss some highlights of his career so far. 

Transcript

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Hello everybody. Welcome to episode eight of the, it's a Lot y'all podcast. I'm Allie d. With me as always, producer Nicole. And we are so, so, so excited about today's episode because we have an amazing guest joining us. It is going to be Sean Keith, the PA announcer for the Dallas Mavericks and the in-stadium on camera. host for the Dallas Cowboys as well. And so we are really thrilled that. Carved out some time in his schedule to talk to us, Yes. We not only hear his voice throughout the arena, but Sean has such an important role and I'm so excited to ask him so many questions and learn more about how he got started and what he does. Yeah. His position is truly a really, really not only impactful one, but a really difficult one. So let's go ahead and dive right in and talk to our friend Shawn. All right, everybody. We are so excited to have the Sean Heath on the It's a lot y'all podcast. He is joining us now. Welcome to the show, Sean. Hi everybody, how are you? Hey, so Sean Heath is the pa, the public address announcer for the Dallas Mavericks and also, another. stadium personality for the Dallas Cowboys, which we can get to as well. But we have so much talk about with you because we have like a zillion questions. We wanna know everything there is to know about your job behind the scenes, what goes on. Cuz you actually have a super important job, not only what the fans are seeing, but also us on the production side because you are like kind of a leader in that. And I don't even know if you know that, but before we get into all of that, you're putting a lot of pressure on me right now. I did not. Now I'm nervous. I didn't realize my job was such a big deal. It is a big deal. but before we get into that, I just wanna know, I mean, I know this story, but tell us how you got the job with the Dallas Mavericks, cuz that's a great story. Do you want the human version or the Sean version? Um, the Sean version. Okay. Why not? So way back in 1966, I was born and then fast forward, yada yada, yada. Boom. I'm the mad pa guy. Uh, no. in like the summer of 2000. The previous PA announcer, humble, Billy Hayes was leaving and, the Maverick decided to have open auditions. I heard about it waiting in the carpooling to pick my son up from school. and I called in 2 1 4 7 4 7 mask. And got scheduled and they held the auditions, like with one of those six foot folding tables sitting on the floor of American Airline Center because the stars weren't playing, so the ice wasn't down, so it was down to the cement. Oh. And they had us come in and I think like 60 people auditioned live. And I don't even, wow know, I don't even know how many other people send in videos and audition and stuff around the country. I think the number's like close to 200 something. What was weird was, It was the table, a microphone and some script pages, starting a couple of, so no vibes, like no Mavs vibes, no noise in the stadium except for over your left shoulder. So the giant jumbotron was about six feet from the arena floor. It was lowered damage, lowered working on some issue with a module or a panel or whatever. And Mark Cuban was standing over there talking to one of the techs, cuz Mark's a tech nerd, right? Yeah. He probably had the solution so Mark was over there talking and they say, okay, go. They're sitting like 40 feet away. You're almost in the center of the floor. It's very lonely feeling. Very folding people. Tim and the microphone in some pages. Yeah. And Mark Cuban's right over your shoulder. So, being the clueless person that I am, I just went in and did it my way. I did it how I would do it. I had worked on microphone. For 20 plus years, I started working as a DJ in nightclubs when I was 16. So I've been talking on microphones, big groups of people forever. I worked in musical theater for a couple years and, sung backup harmonies for music artists. Mm-hmm. And so I've, I've been on a microphone before. But never exactly like that. Like I think I announced, I remembered announcing a high school basketball game one time back in the early eighties, And so, they had the open auditions. I did the starting lineups, and then I asked, I said, hold on just a second. And then I did the starting lineups in Spanish. Uh, and Oh, They narrowed it down to 10. They put up an online voting. those of us who were auditioning. We didn't know. They videoed our auditions and then put them up on mavs.com and people could go on the website and vote. and then they narrowed it down to six of us. There were three preseason games. And they let each of us do half of a preseason game. So I got to do the first half of the preseason game against the Cavaliers, and that's when LeBron and Shaquille O'Neal were still there, but they were both out because they had played the night before. Mm. So I didn't get to it, and I'm like, oh, that sucks. So anyways, we did the preseason. It was really cool. It was the first time I'd ever sat in American Airlines Center below the 300 s when I watched Maps games. Prior to that time, every game I ever saw, I was up in either like three 10 or 3 0 6. I'd never seen a Mavs game down in the lower bowl. and I got to sit down in the one hundreds and watch a MA game. Like this is the greatest thing ever. Even if I don't get the job, I'm like, this is cool cuz I've been a Mavs fan since day. And so then they narrowed it down to two of us after that and Mark couldn't make a decision or didn't wanna make a decision. So then he decided, let's let e each of these guys do a regular season game, a full game. Wow. So the other guy was, Mike Taylor, who now I think is the voice of the Texas Legends. The He does, he does a lot of other stuff around tattoo. He's got an amazing voice, amazing Barone, really good voice and. So Michael did the first game and I got to do the second game. So November of 2009, the first NBA A game I ever announced. We were playing the Utah Jazz. We were down 17 points, I think, in the third quarter. And Dirk scored 29 points in the fourth quarter to set a franchise record for points in a quarter. We won the game. That's the first NBA game I ever announced. Chills. And they still didn't make a decision, so Mark decided, well, what we'll do is we'll have them alternate home games and have them do five games each, which that pushed us into like December, right? Yeah. The second game that I announced was against Houston and we were down 16 points in the first half and we ended up coming back and winning that game and, oh, this is great. Guess who becomes the lucky charm? Yeah. So back and forth, back and forth. but ultimately I got the job, and this is my 14th season. and then like everything else I do in Dallas, I wasn't going after gigs in Dallas at the time because I was working as a software engineer and a corporate trainer. And then this Mavs opportunity, I'm like, yeah, cool. I'll do that. And then I, started to realize, hey, maybe I could do this. Maybe this could be the thing I do. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And. You know, I know a person here and then our good friend, DJ Wiz Anthony Johnson. Mm-hmm. he was asked to fill in over at the Cowboys on the East Plaza as a DJ And it turns out one of their hosts needed to be replaced. So Anthony told the Cowboys, Hey, you should have Sean come over. So I went over and that's how I wound up being with the Cowboys and then started over there. Years later. I'm like, Ellie, you know, we need to, I was desperate. And I'm like, and I even told'em, I said, at the time, I said, I can't imagine she has time to come and do this. She's so busy. Cause you had just started your clothing. Yeah. So you were really hardcore into l e d, enterprises. Yeah. And so you were, you were going to all the trade shows and you were really focused on them like, right. Anyway, she's gonna have time to do this plus, I was kind of pushing you. I'm like, when are you gonna do your album? When's another album coming out? Yeah. What's this? Yeah. Yeah. And so I love singing. Yeah. I didn't, I didn't think there was any chance at all that you would have time to do that. And so I just hesitantly sent you a text, Hey, any chance you might be interested on doing this thing? Please. Yeah. And she said Yes. And then I got to hang out with the great Ali D for a couple seasons. It was a good. And here we are. Here. We we're like full circle now in the cold part of The's. Funny. I know. It's so funny how it all, like it's so crazy. Works out with just networking and people knowing each other and kind of bringing everyone on, you know? Yeah. It's amazing. We meet so many great people in all the events we work. it really is awesome. And. Sean is so friendly you just love to talk to all the fans and get to know them. And that's a huge part of the whole thing too, is just treating all the fans. This is a huge experience for them and so it's important for everybody on the entertainment side to always understand that and anytime we have an interaction with them, like this could be one of the their best memories. And so you are very good at also perpetuating that thought. But I do wanna go back to you working the mic as the PA for the Mavericks for a little bit more because. if the only basketball PA you had done was in high school one time, how the heck did you know what you were doing when you went into that first game? Because your job, you guys, so you understand, Sean is the person communicating everything. X As and O'S and basketball related, that goes on the court to the 17,000 plus fans. Mm-hmm. in the arena and also to our show, which is going on at the same time, our entertainment side. So to me it just seems so crazy that your first gig is like on an NBA court. You didn't do it in college. It wasn't something that you had done, a hundred times at that point. So how did you even know to say like time out or number two, right? Like how'd you know all the intricacies of the position? you know, I never really thought about it like that, it's like being a surgeon and being like, well, I've never really done the surgery, but I gimme that haven seen, I'm gonna save a life. So, you know, I have a headset on mm-hmm. that I can hear. I'll replay, game coordinator Carla, and then back when, Steve Letson was running everything, he would call the show kind of from over my shoulder, near press row. He's sitting down there making sure everything's going. Now, we have Jacob who does that and does a spectacular job. And then we have, Jonathan, cornucopia, His nickname. we're trying to make it stick. so we have Jonathan, who literally is calling the whole show and he decides, Hey, this is a hot time out. And I hear all this chatter of Jonathan talking to the replay room and Carlos saying, okay, Sean, go. And so we used to do paper scripts. Now we do. I remember a show flow, right? We do show flow. So I have a, tablet in front of me and it has the script on there of what the read is for the promo, the timeout, the ad, the psa, whatever that. But a lot of times it's just go, mm-hmm. You know, the sandbox theory. A lot of people don't know it by that, but it's very simple. Tell me the boundaries. Who's the sponsor? Right? How long do I have? What do you want me to accomplish? If you give me those parameters? I don't need a script. cuz I'm gonna ad lib and tweak and edit the script on the fly. And I think everybody does that. It's not, it's not something special or unique I don't think. I'm just, I'm very comfortable doing it. And so if I know who the sponsor is, I know who the contestants are, I know what the contest is. I can just mix it up and goof around. It helps that when I'm throwing to contests that I'm throwing to somebody who's one of my best friends in Ali e d. Cause I can throw something and Allie listens to what I throw to her, and then she plays off of that. So, you know. Mm-hmm. and CNO does that too. I can say something like, All right. You know who loves Whataburger Flying fries, l e d, both the fries, Yu and the game. What's going on? L e d. And she will pick up, I gave her a lead in and she just knocks it out of the part. And so while I get to do the setups for a lot of things like that, when it's just me doing something. I don't know, the starting lineups or you know, dance cam I get the starting cue from Carla Go and she syncs that up with Jonathan, who is syncing up with DJ sippy playing the music and they hit the music so I really. Three jobs. Yeah. I was just sitting here thinking I know like what you're explaining, like you have multiple jobs in your one job, so Yeah, when I was asking my question, I forgot the whole side of not only are you like controlling your payment, I know the timeouts and all the promotion side and the reads and half. Time and like this guy, when he sits down guys, he's not getting up to use the bathroom for the whole whole three hours. He can't leave his microphone Sure. well, so the three things that I do, the three things that all P announcers have to do, specifically I'll relate this to the N B A, So you have to communicate the sponsor information. Mm-hmm. because they paid so. talk about sponsors and do their promos and their PSAs. Then you have the internal. Promotions, Mavs Camp Gem, the Mark Cuban Foundation, the Mavs Foundation community, right? Yeah. We have all that internal stuff that it's super critical and very important, right? So you make sure that you get those things in. And then the other thing that I do is strictly administrative. Mm-hmm. announcing the time. Who the foul was on, what the foul was, how many freak girls are being shot, the plays being reviewed for what So I'm a representative for the Mavs and I'm the bridge between the Mavs. Game presentation and the referees. Right. So I have to hear what they say. Correct. And then communicate that in a non inciting way. That's not exciting. It's inciting. I cannot. Urged a crowd to express their dissatisfaction with something that has gone on rule wise, And as a, you have be neutral fan. You have to deliver in a neutral tone. Anybody who knows me neutral is not, I'm not a beige guy. That's not one of my colors, right. I'm a Mavs fan on a microphone at a Mavs game, and that's the. as a matter of fact, I've had a referee tell me in the last couple of years, he came up to me after the starting lineups and before I did the hype for the tip, and he said, you're like one of only two announcers in the NBA who seem to really enjoy what you do. My job is not to be impartial. I don't see it as such because if it was to be impartial, anybody would be sitting in that seat, it wouldn't be me. Mm-hmm. the reason I'm in that seat is at least I hope it comes across that I am as crazy a fan about that team as anybody else in that building, regardless of where they're sitting, regardless of who they are or if they own the team or not. and so I want them to do well, and people who know me and know my voice can hear when I'm disappointed with the way the score is going or when I'm very excited with the way the score is going. And I've always felt that in this specific situation in Mavs games. I just happen to have the microphone. I'm the mask fan with the microphone. And to be fair, if I wasn't sitting in that seat announcing mass games, I'd still be in the building. I'd just be up in the 300 s these are my guys, this is my team. I even say it. I find myself falling into habit the last couple of years of saying right before tip when I'm doing the little pret tip height. this is our house. This is our team and this is our time, and I really think it's always our time. I always think we're gonna win, even doesn't matter who we're playing. I think what we can win this game. so no experience doing N B A games or professional sports for that matter. They give you a script, so that's fine. all I had to do was read check. I got a headset, someone's gonna tell me when to go check. Now the rules of the. and announcing things properly. I picked up from, the guys who were sitting on either side of me Your SCO table, there's several people on your team so that are helping you with the basketball parts of it. Yeah, right. Immediately to my left was until this season, Tim and Man that he knows everything, right? He does SMU sports, SMU basketball. they've done high school football at at t Stadium. they're the guys, and that's the scores table. To my right is Greg, who runs an actual paper. Book, and he writes down every free throw, every three pointer, every missed free throw. and then behind us is the stats crew, and They're the ones who determined, was it a block, was it a steal, was it a turnover, was it an assist? was it an actual rebound? They're the people who are putting that into the system and making sure it goes up on the boards, but they also create the actual box scores. So the little printed box score that shows their stats for every player on both teams. They're the ones who make sure that all the information on there is correct because they're responsible for documenting the history of that game that took place. So it's kind of cool I get to sit in with some really talented people. it's so fun to get to work with them it's a family. Yeah. it's amazing how being with the Mavs, you know, and me, I've been there 16 seasons, so just a couple more than you. but we truly are, it's a family there, so I know like we're all excited to see each other every game. It's like, Showing up for a party. it's, we're gonna have, yes. It's not like work. It's not like work at all. Mm-hmm. It's the least work-like job I've ever had. Right. and I love it. you know as you were talking about, the stats crew documenting the history of the game and everything that's going on. I want you to tell me, what is one of the, I know you've had some incredible moments in your position with the Mavs championship games, Dirks, all the stuff going on. So do you have like a moment that stands out in your career? That was one of like the top moments? I know there's probably several, but what's something that jumps into your. Um, so for me, The first game I did because I flew my mom down from Little Rock Oh, to see the game. And my daughter was there, Josie, she was there and it was her first basketball game. Oh, so her first basketball game was that game. Dirk and JJ were her favorite players. Oh, Dirk goes crazy in the fourth quarter and I was announcing it, so that was her first N B A game, the first amazing first snatch game. So that, that night was pretty cool. Dirk's 30,000 point was cool. That was a big deal. Yeah. Retirement he was building just to my right. I got to see it. Yeah. That was, the retirement was super sad, but very awesome. Yeah. you know, I've had some of the moments that I remember the most are. They're not like momentous, but they're moments that like, oh, I really, I appreciate that, what that means. Maybe not to anybody else, but to me. Mm-hmm. the other thing is in my first couple of seasons, I remember we were playing Denver and Kenyon Martin was still playing for them. Dallas. legend Kenyon Martin, And halftime the players, you know, when they come out to start the second half, they come out a couple minutes early and they get worn back up and stuff, and I'm sitting there doing something and, and I see this massive human being just kinda lean down and sit on the edge of the padded table right in front. and he looks down and he goes, Hey man. And I look up and it's Kenon Martin, like Hey man. And he goes, it's Kenya. I'm like, yeah, I know Kenya Martin. I know. He goes, you call me Kenya on the entire first half. Oh no. And I said, what? No, I didn't. and the guy working the book was filling out some stuff and he goes, yep. Didn't even look up. He? Yep. Like, yeah, you did. And I And cause Kenyon's name is spelled k e n y o n. Kenyon. Yeah. I know his name is Kenyon. He's from Dallas. I'm a huge fan of Kenyon Martin. and I just kenon, man, I am so sorry. He's like, nah man, it's cool I'm like, oh, okay. because I really have one job. we've said earlier in this podcast that I have three jobs. I really have. Say things correctly. Correctly. Get the players names right. Get the ball kids names. Right, exactly. Get the Exactly game ball delivery name. Right. Get the names right, right, right. I do wanna ask you though, being a Mavs fan, how do you feel about, for instance, when you say like, And all the things does that resonate with you, that fans take that home and do you ever think about how cool that is to kind of make a staple or a slogan being in the Mavs world, like for fans that just all of a sudden are like, Luca, like every time you think Luca, you just say it. I don't think about it at the time, and to be completely honest, I'm not false modesty. I don't really think that other people think. of me that way. I really don't. Yeah, I think they think a mask game sounds the way a mask game sounds and Oh, he was there too. Mm-hmm. I don't think about about it that way. Mm-hmm. but I will say when. Whenever anybody says JJ Bere and they go, JJ Bald And they do that, that kind of ma that tickles me a little bit. you're starting traditions, you know? Yeah. Like people, it's a tradition and people know how that's gonna get called and know that from going to a Mavs game you're gonna experience that. I feel like you start traditions in. Well, that's very nice of you to say, unless you hate the way that I say it. And then you dread the fact that every time you go to a match game, no, it's gonna be me. Is that guy still here? Hey, what'd you say about Kyrie? There was something funny you said last game. We were like, that was silly. Oh, did I say O Kai? Goodness. Yes. Yes. Yeah, that was so good. Christie The Usher and I were like, oh my God. Did he just say that right now? That Well, cause here's the thing, when, oh, Kai, we talked, we talked about, trade deadline, right? I'm very hesitant sometimes to throw something out new for a new guy during the middle of the season, And so I don't really workshop these things. They pop into my head and I have the button, I push the button on the microphone and I yell it out in front of everybody and let's see what happens. right. And so JJ. That was what happened. That's how JJ happened. Mm-hmm. um, the Dirk and the Luca, are kind of self-defense because I have a v I'm a tenor. I have a very high voice, and when I get excited, it gets even higher, but it's very clear in the upper end of my voice. Mm-hmm. and that can really be piercing and annoying to people. Oh my God. I know. Because I have been told, so like the first game I ever did, I knew that when I am loud and high notes, it's very clear and very piercing. So that's when the growl came in and I didn't do it on purpose, it just happened. I didn't even realize I was doing it for the first half of the game. And the guy that was working the book said, what are you doing with your voice? I said, what are you talking about? Yes. And he goes, you're like growling everything. I'm like, what? And then I paid attention, like, oh crap, I am, and it just happens. I didn't even think about it. And the reason I say those things is cause they amuse me. It's about me so, so all of the different things I have for Luca or for whatever, those are things that I'll think about and I'll try'em out. I have had players come up to me, a couple of times, very rarely, but I've had a couple players come up to me where I would drop something, like I'd come up with a nickname or something and they would come up to me like, yeah, man, I'm not feeling that. I'm like that. It doesn't, it doesn't hurt my feelings. Right. It's your name if you don't want that nickname, that's cool. So to back to Kai and Okai. Goodness. I'm very hesitant to just call him Kai, because his name's Kyrie but all the guys call him Kai. Mm-hmm. And I guess I have Need to feel cool and feel like I'm in the club. So I started calling him Kai. And so one thing that I do that I've been told nobody else does is when our players go to the free throw line, I only say their first name. Hmm. And with Kai now going to the line for two shots, Kai. Wow. I don't say his full name. D. But with Luca, he's the only one who gets the real, like, I want everybody to calm down. Stop chanting, shooting free throws. Right. Controlling the crowd line for two shots. Yes, everybody, we love that Everybody relax. It's okay. Right. And, So with Kai, I could say Kai three. Mm-hmm. Irving, but eh, right. I like, I like, I like Kai. I think it fits. It's very simple. It's very clear. But I think, people remember the way I. Absolutely. A couple different ways. I said Dirk's name. Yeah. Where they remember some of the things I've said about Luca. And that's kind of neat. Yeah. It has a huge, but that's not why I do it. Yeah. It has a huge impact on the fans and actually also the history of the game. Mm-hmm. like a lot of your other dad jokes have a big impact on. On me, which is what I learned when we started to work together at the Dallas Cowboys. I had no idea. I just wanna apologize retroactively, because I'm a dad. You're, you're, so I, and I've said this before, I have been extremely fortunate when I have worked on stage to work with some of the most talented women in sports present. You, I love that you, came stru I did a couple, uh, cotton balls with her. and even my first year at the Cowboys, I worked with, uh, Kelsey Charles, And she's on stage with me. Flawless. Right? Just flawless. Now I'm in stadium and I'm on set with Shonda music. Mm-hmm. Music. Mm-hmm. It's, I, I mean the talent level. I'm kind of nervous. I'm like, are you sure you wanna put me with her? Oh gosh. so I've been very fortunate in the women that I've been able to co-host with. you all have similar personalities in that no matter what stupid thing I say, and Nicole handled this too, as a stage manager, no matter what ridiculous thing I say You're like, no, that's Sean, whatever. And it doesn't phase any of you. Now. You don't get flustered. You're just like, yeah, but you are all able, because of your personalities and your talent and your skillsets, you're all able to just roll with it and go, oh, I guess we're doing this now. Okay. And you just jump in and play along with it. And it makes my. Life, not just my job, not just my career. It makes my life so much nicer because oh, I get to develop those relationships and friendships with you. Mm-hmm. you get what's going on in here, as loud as noisy and crazy as it can be in there. You get it, you're like, oh, I see what he's doing, and he just go right along and you. Keep me all of you, keep me from looking much more stupid than I look. Can you imagine if there was nobody, if you weren't reigning me in? Can you imagine the insanity that would be happening? It'd be, it'd be crazy. Hey, believe it or not, I, I can't imagine it. You know. Yeah. You've seen it. I know. I've seen it. Sean, this is so exciting. I feel like we could just talk forever and ever about all the awesome things you do, cuz there's just so many sides to your job with the Mavs and also with cowboys. And I just feel like the fans really got a good insight on what it's like to be behind the mic in your shoes because it's not just. Saying, time out. It's not just calling the players' names. It's such a huge, huge part of the entire Mavs experience. So thank you so much for joining us on the, it's a lot y'all podcast. I can't believe the time is up and, we're so happy that you were able to make it today. Thanks again. Uh, it's been my honor. So we're just gonna go back and start over and do everything different again, right? Yeah. We're just gonna start this whole thing over again. Okay, cool. Great. Ready? Everybody. One places people You nailed it. All right. Thanks again, Sean. Thanks guys. See you later. Thank you so much, Sean Heath for joining us on the It's a lot y'all podcast. Wow. I learned a lot of stuff that I didn't really realize goes on in his job. I know. It was really great to have him on the show. Yeah. All right guys. Don't forget, if you want to reach out to us, you can catch us on all social media platforms at, it's a lot y'all. If you're listening on Spotify or Apple Podcast, please be sure you subscribe. We are so grateful that you're on this journey with us. Thanks a lot and we'll see you next time. Bye-bye.