Sunday, July 13, 2008
Sports columnist Aaron McFarling: Cubs fan Provus living his dream
Aaron McFarling
Recent columns
The kid had talent. This, Bill Roth could tell right away. It was evident on the college play-by-play tapes, apparent in the phone interviews.
The face-to-face meetings eight years ago confirmed it. Then-coach Bonnie Henrickson liked him. Everybody at the office liked him. Yes, Roth figured, young Cory Provus would be a solid hire as the Virginia Tech women's basketball broadcaster for ISP.
Roth -- the longtime radio voice of Hokies men's basketball and football -- was right about that. But what's happened to Provus since "just doesn't happen" in his business, Roth says. At least not this fast.
On Monday, Provus turned 30 years old. On Tuesday, he headed to Wrigley Field and helped describe another Chicago Cubs victory on WGN radio. He anchored the pregame show and the postgame show. And in the fifth inning, he sat alongside Cubs legend Ron Santo and handled the play-by-play.
This is his job now.
If you want to call it that.
"I'm so lucky, man," Provus said by phone last week, a little less than two years after landing his dream job. "This is my hometown, my favorite team. I'm a diehard Cub fan, and the fact that I get to travel the country with the team and fly with the team and be on the bus -- it's fantasy camp and I get paid for it."
Provus' road to his own personal Shangri-La featured professional stops in Winston-Salem, N.C., and Birmingham, Ala. But it started in Blacksburg and Pulaski in 2000, where he handled Tech's women's basketball play-by-play and morning sports updates for New River Valley Radio Partners.
From 6 to 10 a.m., the recent Syracuse graduate would hop from studio to studio -- joining the morning shows on WFNR, WPSK and others -- to provide updates on local sports.
"I was doing close to 40 sportscasts a day, which was an unbelievable experience," Provus said. "It taught you how to ad-lib on the fly. The art of writing is obviously important, but you have to be able to think on your feet, too, in this business. And that was a real advantageous part of the job."
His Tech role expanded his second year. He became the studio host for Hokies football games for ISP, anchoring the pregame show, the halftime show and the postgame wrapup.
"He was a natural," Roth said. "He was the consummate team guy. He was able to mesh really well with the Tech family."
But not a day went by -- in spring, summer, fall or winter -- without Provus talking about the Cubs. A native of Highland Park, Ill., Provus was the kind of fan who set his alarm for 2 a.m. when the team opened the season in Japan or fired a cordless phone against the wall when the Cubbies blew a game during the pennant race. He started following the team at an early age, connecting to the club through the late Harry Carey.
"What I knew most about the Cubs was that guy with the big glasses who was on TV," Provus said. "I didn't know so much about what Larry Bowa's stats were or what [Rick] Sutcliffe's stats were and things like that. I just knew about the guy with the big glasses who would scream out of the booth during the seventh-inning stretch."
Throughout his formative years in the business, he kept in touch with the decision-makers at WGN, letting them know whenever he made a move.
He got a part-time job in Chicago with Sporting News Radio in '03, providing the national scoreboard updates every 20 minutes. Then he rejoined ISP at the company headquarters in Winston-Salem, serving as the studio host for Georgia Tech football and men's basketball and subbing in for play-by-play teams throughout the country. He rarely turned down an assignment.
In '06, he landed a job as the play-by-play man at Alabama-Birmingham, essentially becoming UAB's version of Roth. Before he offered Provus the position, then-UAB football coach and athletic director Watson Brown asked Provus if he planned to stick around for a long time.
"Coach," Provus remembers telling him. "The only way I'd leave is if the Cubs came knocking down my door and offered me a job.
"Do I see that happening?" he added. "No."
But it did, albeit not quite that way. In February of '07, Provus got wind that Cubs studio host Andy Masur might be leaving the team to take a job with the Padres. He quickly got in touch with WGN.
Masur did leave. And after weeks of phone interviews and various trips to meet key members of the club, Provus got the job.
"It didn't hit me until that home opener that Monday," Provus said. "That was surreal. I remember driving in to the park and I said, 'You know what? This is probably the first time I'm going to Wrigley Field without going to drink beer. I'm actually going to work.' "
Despite a busy schedule -- he'll toil up to 11 hours a day and is only off when the team is, which is a dozen times during the regular season -- it doesn't feel like work to Provus. He enjoys a good rapport with the players and relishes the opportunity to learn from the uber-popular broadcasting team of Pat Hughes and Santo.
"You know what's funny?" Provus said. "Pat and Ron, they're very comparable to Bill and Mike [Burnop]. Not only the passion that they share, but also the fun that they have."
Provus still keeps in touch with Roth regularly. In April, when the Cubs were in Washington to play the Nationals, Roth spent some time in the booth with his former protege.
"To this day, Roth is a great friend, and he'll always be an amazing mentor," Provus said. "Just because he trusted in me and gave me some early opportunities. It was mine to lose. He would be great for feedback and he's one of the best in the business, so when I would screw up on something, he would always be somebody to go to."
Meanwhile, the franchise known as the "Lovable Losers" has done nothing but win since Provus has been there. The club claimed the NL Central crown last year and storms into the All-Star break in first place again.
One of the highlights of Provus' life came in Cincinnati last year, when Chicago clinched the division. He covered the clubhouse celebration live for the better part of an hour and wrapped up a memorable interview with Cubs reliever Will Ohman this way:
Provus: "Will, thanks. Appreciate it buddy. Go celebrate with your teammates."
Ohman: "Thank you, Cory. By the way, can I pour a beer on your head?"
By all means, Provus thought. After all, he was already soaked in champagne. Poured on him by his heroes.
That night, Provus couldn't sleep. He turned off his cellphone, killed all the lights in his hotel room and lay on the bed, reflecting on what had just happened.
"Man, I'm 29 years old, look what I've accomplished," he remembers thinking. "It's almost at the point where I'm living my dream, I've reached my goal, so what's next?"
Provus paused.
"I haven't figured that out yet," he said through the phone. "That's the best part."
