In the last two weeks, Penn has held auditions to find a replacement for John McAdams, the longtime public address announcer at the Palestra, who passed away in June.
So far, five candidates have been seen by the search committee, which is headed by Peggy Kowalski, the athletic department's associate director of operations.
Mike Mahoney, director of athletic communications, said that several more hopefuls will be brought in today.
One of the candidates, who asked to remain anonymous while the search is still ongoing, gave The Daily Pennsylvanian a summary of what the tryout was like.
The auditions were originally supposed to be held earlier in the summer, but because the movie Invincible was being filmed on Franklin Field, the athletic department did not have enough time to dedicate to the audition process.
Instead, the auditions began two weeks ago. According to the candidate, at least seven other people contacted the athletic department after McAdams' death inquiring about the availability of the job.
During the audition, three people sat in the stands at the Palestra while the candidate read timeout announcements and advertisements and then had to call the starting lineups for a game.
According to Mahoney, the script was the same for each candidate.
The candidate's one major criticism of the audition process was that it was too short.
There were no actual game situations during the tryout. The candidate believes that a basketball PA announcer needs to be able to react and speak quickly, especially when referees get angry, the candidate says, when PA announcers call out who a foul is on without the official signalling it.
The candidate said that there will be another round of tryouts on Tuesday in addition to the ones today.
According to the candidate, the search process may yield announcers for other sports as well as just basketball.
In his 24 years behind the microphone at the Palestra, McAdams also served as the announcer for several other Penn sports, including baseball, soccer and lacrosse.
Mahoney confirmed that there would likely be different announcers picked to do other sports as well as back up the winner for the basketball job, but that replacing McAdams at the Palestra was the "primary reason" to do the search.
However, Mahoney does not know an exact timetable of when the final decision will be reached.
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In addition to his duties with Penn, McAdams was the PA announcer in many other places, including the Single-A Wilmington (Del.) Blue Rocks.
To honor McAdams and help his wife, Nancy, the Richmond Group International, the I Am Focused nonprofit organization and Positive Promotions are organizing a charity basketball game on Sept. 24.
The game will feature the Delaware Destroyers minor league basketball team against various media personalities, and will be held at Wilmington College.
Replacing a legend To find a replacement for John McAdams, the Penn athletic department is holding auditions - Five candidates have already been tried out, with more to come today - Candidates have to read a mock starting lineup at the Palestra as well as several advertisements that would normally be heard during timeouts
