var SimpleReach_authors = new Array('Dave Owens @DaveOwensWUSA');
WASHINGTON, D.C. (WUSA)--It's hours before Georgetown and Notre Dame tips off and it's eerily quiet at the Verizon Center. This is Rich Chvotkin's domain. "I never envisioned it would have gotten to this point," says Chvotkin.
Rich Chvotkin tells stories through spoken word, he's the voice of Georgetown basketball thirty-eight years running. His brain seems like a machine as he goes through his pregame ritual of memorizing names and numbers. "That's what I spend the most time on," says Chvotkin. I carry the names around for a good month before the game."
He also has mounds of handwritten notes in what seems like old school Egyptian hieroglyphics, but it's his style. "I have everything down to a science, I know where everything is," says Chvotkin laughing.
Greatest game he's ever seen, that's easy. "I think the best game I ever saw was Georgetown versus North Carolina." Pound for pound, the stakes of that game and who was in that game (Patrick) Ewing, (Michael) Jordan, (Sam) Perkins, (James) Worthy just unbelievable."
Great things from humble beginnings. Chvotkin used to sit in the stands at local schools and announce games into a tape recorder. Then he would shop them around to coaches. John Thompson Jr. was one of them; he liked what he heard and the rest, as they say, is history.
Chvotkin hasn't missed a season since, except for half of the 1990-91 campaign when the Army Reservist was called to serve in Operation Desert Storm. "It was interesting. I would listen to a Georgetown game on Armed Forces Radio and I would say, that's not me!"
Now he's back on duty broadcasting solo with one exception. His son, Evan, does all the stats. "I know what he wants just from working with him for nine seasons," says Evan. "You know exactly when the time is right to feed that stat."
The elder Chvotkin is currently in the Top Six among active current Division I broadcasters and Top 18 all-time longevity in Division I.
Dave Owens
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