Chris Blair didn’t attend LSU.
He’s not from Louisiana, nor has he ever lived in the state. His current job has required him to call games in Monroe, Lafayette and New Orleans, but it has been with a rooting interest for an out-of-state team. And he certainly won’t try to be Jim Hawthorne, a man he greatly respects and admires.
But don’t mistake his Kentucky roots and Georgia residency for a lack of passion for his future position as the next “Voice of the Tigers.”
When the current Georgia Southern University radio play-by-play broadcaster moves his family to Baton Rouge in late November, he’ll be all in for LSU.
“I’ve got a closet full of purple and gold now,” Blair said.
For Blair, the play-by-play duties for LSU athletics is an unrivaled dream job, so replacing Hawthorne, beginning with the 2016 baseball season, isn’t one he’s taking for granted. After all, Blair, who has been the “Voice of the Eagles” for the last nine years, didn’t exactly expect to be in this position.
The search to replace Hawthorne, who has spent the past 32 years behind the microphone for the three major LSU sports, was nationwide and received more than 100 applicants, including familiar local and regional names. While the odds may have been stacked against him, Blair rolled the dice, and, after an interview in Baton Rouge three weeks ago, he waited patiently.
Finally, a phone call from Athletic Director Joe Alleva came, cementing his foreseeable future in the broadcasting business.
“There is no where to go from here,” Blair said. “This is where I want to be. This is where I want to stay. Lord willing, they don’t throw me out of Baton Rouge, and I get to live a long time calling LSU games.”
With his position at Georgia Southern, which was an FCS program when he arrived, most LSU fans or Division I football fans may not know his name, but Blair isn’t inexperienced working for a fervent fan base. He called four South Carolina high school state championships while working for a nationally renowned high school program and also was a part of the Clemson Tiger Sports Radio Network before heading to Statesboro, Georgia.
Georgia Southern itself has a spirited following, which was built off six FCS national titles.
But well before that, his radio roots began in high school with his father, Steve, who was a radio station owner and operator while also calling Kentucky prep basketball games. Consciously or not, experiences with his father and numerous others have shaped who Blair is on radio and gave him the knowledge of what to do in unexpected situations.
“I used to joke as a kid,” Blair said. “My dad had three voices: He had the voice around the house that I knew, my sister and my mom knew, he had the voice on the telephone, and then he had a separate voice when he got in front of a microphone. Subconsciously, when you’re around that, eventually you realized that there are times to do that.
“I’ve always said, ‘I don’t do great radio, but I know it when I hear it.’ I think that’s part of the gift that my dad handed down to me.”
Although he never worked with him, Blair may have gathered something from times listening to Hawthorne’s calls. While with the Clemson radio team, where its broadcasts would typically take place in the afternoon, Blair would tune into WWL AM 870 on trips back home to hear Hawthorne’s voice on a Saturday night. It was practically the only college football you could hear on the road, but the exposure was something he said he values.
So much so, Blair couldn’t laud and pick his LSU predecessor’s brain enough when he finally met him in Baton Rouge, especially his emotion during ups and downs of a game.
“I told Jim, ‘One of the things I always loved about the way you call a game is that you never have to wonder what’s Jim thinking,’” Blair said. “You can hear it. That’s the cool thing.”
But Blair knows that the change in voices will take time for LSU fans to become accustomed to. He recalled taking over in 2006 for Nate Hirsch, who served for more than three-decades at Georgia Southern, and the battle to win over fans in his first big break.
Blair, though, learned and grew with the Eagles, and he developed catchphrases he became known for, such as, “Put an Eagle six on it,” to signify a Georgia Southern touchdown.
So when he takes the microphone in spring 2016, he won’t be trying to duplicate someone who has become synonymous with the University, which he called “an exercise in futility.”
He’ll be attempting to establish his own legacy for the purple and gold faithful, no matter how long it takes.
“I’ve learned in college athletics that you spend a lot of time with these coaches, and you spend a lot of time traveling with these student athletes,” Blair said. “You learn to really respect them, and you learn to really care about them. You want to see them succeed. When they do, you can’t help but be super excited. When things don’t go well, you have to feel bad for them.
“I think if you just go in and be who you are — your style may be a little bit different — but over time, I think you will win people over. That won’t happen overnight. You got to be in it for the long haul, and certainly, with this opportunity, I am in it for the long haul.”
You can reach James Bewers on Twitter @JamesBewers_TDR.