brad sham

all the vague, double-talking commercials you've heard about Cowboys-Packers. Here's the deal: If you get KDFI (Channel 27) on your television set, you will be able to watch the game Thursday night. You don't need a satellite dish or cable. You'll get the NFL Network feed, which means Bryant Gumbel and Cris Collinsworth will be in the Texas Stadium booth.

II. To be sure, Gumbel, whose rookie play-by-play season took some hits, doesn't have the classic play-by-play voice. Says he: "For whatever my voice is or isn't, it's the only one I got."

III. For a more conventional call, there is always Brad Sham and Babe Laufenberg in the radio booth.

IV. Sunday's Fox late game that featured the Cowboys-Redskins registered was the fifth-most-watched show of the TV season with 23.8 million viewers. Cowboys-Giants the previous week ranks fourth with 25.1 million. Cowboys-Patriots is second at 29.1 million. Patriots-Colts reigns supreme at 33.8 million. You see a trend here? Fox has to be salivating for a Cowboys-Patriots rematch in the Super Bowl.

V. Only the season debut of CSI at 25.4 million breaks up the NFL stag party at the top of the viewing chart.

VI. You wouldn't believe the number of e-mails that came in this week criticizing Fox's Troy Aikman for being anti-Cowboys during the game against the Redskins. Jealousy of Tony Romo was the predominant reason given. How do you spell 'r-i-d-i-c-u-l-o-u-s'?

VII. "The [Houston Texans] are definitely a fortable opponent." � analyst Emmitt Smith, during Monday night's ESPN pregame show

VIII. Notre Dame football finished its NBC season averaging a 1.9 rating. That's down 33 percent from the glory days of 2006.

IX. CBS' NFL Today pregame show Sunday has a sitdown with Everson Walls and Shawn Springs. They'll discuss why the Springs family has not given up hope for the recovery of Ron Springs, who is in a coma. Just last week, Shawn told reporters his father is in a vegetative state and doctors say there is no chance of recovery.

X. NBC's Sunday Night Football schedule has Tampa Bay-San Francisco and Kansas City-New York Jets penciled in for its final two dates. Those game will never make it to NBC's air. Call them poster games for "flex scheduling."

HOT SEAT
Lee Corso, ESPN GameDay analyst
ESPN's College GameDay visits Kansas City this morning in advance of tonight's Big 12 showdown between No. 2 Kansas and No. 3 Missouri on ABC. That means GameDay analyst Lee Corso will don either a Jayhawk or Tiger head before the show is over, his customary routine to reveal his predicted winner.

Hot Air: What were the odds before the season that you would actually be doing a GameDay in Kansas City on the Saturday after Thanksgiving?

Lee Corso: Slim and none. Given their past histories, one of the teams should have stumbled along the way. No one in America could have picked this. No one. Anyone who says they did is lying.

HA: If someone came up to you before the season and said Kansas would be the only school on the U.S. mainland that would be undefeated at this point in the season, would you have had them committed?

LC: I would have thought that impossible. I know Mark Mangino is a good coach, and Todd Reesing is a terrific quarterback, but when the MVP award comes out, it goes to the athletic director who made the schedule. Out of the conference, they played four of the worst teams in the history of college football [Central Michigan, Southeastern Louisiana, Toledo, Florida International]."

HA: Who wins the game and the Big 12 North?

LC: I'd have to kill you to tell you. No one knows until I put on the head Saturday morning.

HA: Can you take us through the science that goes into making such a choice?

LC: I make my decision on Wednesday or Thursday. On Saturday, I put the head in a plastic bag and put it under the table before anyone gets to the set. I only bring one head. I broke that rule for the first time earlier this month when we did the Amherst-Williams game. It was the first time in 150 shows we ever did a Division III game. I pulled out a Lord Jeff and then threw it away. I then put on a Purple Cow for Williams. I always wanted to wear a Purple Cow."

HA: When you coached at Indiana, one of your QBs was Babe Laufenberg. What kind of player was he?

LC: He was excellent. He won us the Old Oaken Bucket twice. I don't know any other quarterback who has done that.

HA: The Old Oaken Bucket?

LC: "That's what they give to the winner of the Indiana-Purdue game. By the way, Babe is a smart guy. You know he started out at Stanford. Only smart guys go there. Then John Elway arrived to play quarterback and he transferred out. That's genius."

COOL BREEZES
Unpaid political announcement
Online voting to get on the ballot for the Baseball Hall of Fame's Ford Frick Award ends Nov. 30.

Arlington's James Anderson, who guided the effort that got Astros broadcaster Gene Elston his Frick, is managing the campaign for the late Mark Holtz. He reports that the Rangers are working feverishly on behalf of Holtz.

Should Holtz make the 10-person final ballot, the Rangers are hoping to enlist Nolan Ryan and President George W. Bush for the campaign effort.

You can vote for Holtz, an eight-time Texas Sportscaster of the Year who called Rangers games from 1981 to 1997, at www.baseballhalloffame.org.

Madden on Brady
The undefeated New England Patriots dismantled the Buffalo Bills, 56-10, on the road during the last edition of NBC Sunday Night Football. The Pats make a rare back-to-back prime-time appearance Sunday. This time, they're at home, and the opponent is the Philadelphia Eagles, prohibitive 24-point underdogs.

During a conference call this week, someone asked NBC's John Madden how he would defend against Tom Brady.

"There is no answer," said Madden. "Tom Brady is playing the position of quarterback better than I have ever seen."

Must see: NBC offers a commercial-free, 30-minute tribute to a late coaching legend at 12:30 p.m. today, just before the annual Bayou Classic between Grambling and Southern. It's called Every Man a Tiger: The Eddie Robinson Story. It's riveting even if you think you know Coach Rob's story. The reason DVRs were invented.

The sincerest form of flattery: Impressionist Frank Caliendo on TNT's NBA studio set doing Charles Barkley for Charles Barkley? Masterful. Frank Caliendo on TBS' Frank TV? Not so much. Barkley seems to enjoy Caliendo. John Madden, whom Caliendo has mastered? Not so much, also.

Where's Tiger? The lineup for ABC's Skins Game this weekend: Fred Couples, Stephen Ames, Brett Wetterich and
Brad Sham
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Brad Michael Sham (born August 16, 1949) is a notable American sportscaster who is known as the "Voice of the Dallas Cowboys". Sham is currently heard on the Dallas Cowboys Radio Network, including the flagship stations 1310 AM KTCK "The Ticket" and 93.3 FM KDBN "The Bone". Prior to 2006, Cowboys games were broadcast on 1080AM KRLD, where Sham held the position of Sports Director between 1976 and 1991; on FM-103.5 and 98.7 FM KLUV "K-Love.".

Sham has been with the Cowboys since 1977, when he was hired to be their color analyst along side play-by-play man Verne Lundquist. When Lundquist left for CBS in 1984, Sham became the lead play-by-play man, a position he has held ever since (save for three seasons in the mid 1990s). In 2003, Sham wrote Dallas Cowboys: Colorful Tales of America's Greatest Teams (ISBN: 0762727594). He also contributes weekly columns to dallascowboys.com.

Brad also spent over a decade as the radio voice of the Texas Longhorns' football and basketball teams (mostly in the 1980s), which also aired on flagship KRLD and on the Mutual Southwest Radio Network.

In addition to this, Sham has done NFL play-by-play for the NFL on Westwood One, the NFL on FOX and TNT Sunday Night Football. He has also worked games for NFL Europe and the Arena Football League's Dallas Desperados. Sham has extensive experience broadcasting collegiate sports, having done play-by-play for NCAA athletics, most notably the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship and college football. Sham has been in the booth for 13 Cotton Bowls.

While with KRLD, Sham served as the Texas Rangers' radio voice between 1995 and 1997. He has also worked Major League Soccer games for the Dallas Burn (now FC Dallas) and North American Soccer League games for the Dallas Tornado. He also was part of the crew that covered the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan.

Sham has won Texas Sportscaster of the Year eight times (the maximum allowed), and is a member of the Texas Radio Hall of Fame.