Meet livestream Andy, formerly known as Andy Hardt, the commentator swim fans grew to love over the course of the Men’s NCAA Championships.
Andy commentated five of the seven sessions at NCAAs on the BTN live stream, and quickly become notorious in the SwimSwam comments for his hilarious quotes, such as claiming someone looking fresh to be “full of swimming!”, his energy and passion “here comes Painhas!”, and his ability to quickly apologize for a mistake or missing someone (“I just missed Shoults for most of his leg but..”).
Some were critical of livestream Andy and his commentary/delivery, especially early on, but the majority of swim fans really appreciated his work and energy on the broadcast. Even those who expressed criticism later would go on to say how they were wrong and really enjoyed him. Heck, the man even stuck around and commentated diving prelims. He clearly possesses a swim ‘nerdiness’ that many of us do, and we’ll just have to hope we find him commentating swimming again in the near future.
SwimSwam managed to get an interview with Andy at NCAAs, where he talks about his history in the sport, how this opportunity presented itself, and his thoughts on the future. Check out the interview below:
wpDiscuz
Please no, i couldn’t stand hearing this guy commentate nationals, it was just so cringeworthy as well as this interview. Rowdy is the voice of swimming and hopefully it’ll be that way for a while. Can’t stand this guy Andy, and no offense to him but he cannot commentate swimming.
Rowdy is great for people who only have a “shallow” understanding of the sport. Clearly, you are one of those people.
totally agree on that . The older voice still appeals to many out here ….
Nope im a swimmer & i don’t need to know that someone won’t go fast in the 500 in pre lips (which is not usually true because it’s hard to final at NCAAS) or how to swim a 500 as andy kept explaining over and over and over
he was exceptionally well informed and did an exceptional job commentating
How does that saying go? If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all?
Had to say something because it was horrible listening to him that i had to turn off he sound
Actually this is an open forum they can say what they want
Is he green with his commenting? Yes, but he’ll improve, and here’s the thing- he knows the sport, has a ton of information, was better with the technical aspects, was better about talking about all the swimmers in a heat/race, and was generally more likable than Rowdy. Rowdy has been doing this for decades and he still manages to botch most of the races and seems to know nothing about any one who is not a big name. He’s fine for TV once every four years, but the rest of the time we need Andy
He still wasn’t informed on the swimmers he just knew their times from last year other than that he talked down on some of them saying things like “not going fast” or “really slow”, mentioned that he wanted to see a “44” in backstroke and saying it wasn’t as fast??? When was a 45 100back not fast?
i agree, that bugged me quite a bit as well in the first few sessions but it became better quickly
I love when people say “no offense” then just fire away
the linguistic equivalent of “hold my beer…”
glad to see the swim swam audience in general downvoted this comment severely. andy is great rowdy needs to go
This guy is so sweet, I love it
Haha, what a good sport.
ONE OF US
ONE OF US
Kate, one of you? What does that mean?
Listening to his commentating, it was obvious he reads the comments here. Agreed–he is one of us!
Loved his style! Go, Andy!
I noticed his Minnesota/Midwest accent right away when I heard his commentary. Considering the meet was in Minneapolis, I figured he had to be someone local.
For having no experience at all, he did pretty well.
I thought Andy did an awesome job. Way better than Rowdy. Did anyone notice that when Rowdy was commentating the 1650 with Ledecky, there were seven other swimmers in the heat and he never mentioned one of their names or their schools? Ledecky was having a so-so race and there were a other swimmers in there doing lifetime best times. It was extremely shallow coverage.
I agree, and I think based on the other comments I’ve seen, that race in particular was very annoying.
He had to stay focused on Ledecky, because a few years ago at men’s NCAAs, he thought the winner from Penn was getting lapped until the very last second.
He was very full of announcing.