Former Saint Zach Strief excited about possibility of replacing Jim Henderson in booth

Zach Strief got a call from Max Unger on Sunday.

Unger, Strief’s teammate for the past three seasons with the New Orleans Saints, wanted to know how it felt to be a week away from training camp and know he didn’t have to report.

“Hearing you tell me that is the greatest feeling I’ve had in a long time,” Strief told Unger.

Strief continued: “There are certainly parts of it that I do and will continue to miss. Training camp will never be one of them, certainly the anxiety that you feel.”

But Strief, who was at the YMCA West St. Tammany in Covington on Tuesday to present a $15,000 check from the Saints and Chevron in front of a group of football campers, will never be far from the Saints. In fact, he’ll find out soon whether he will assume one of the most visible positions around the team.

Replacing Henderson

Strief is one of the finalists to replace Jim Henderson on WWL radio as the Saints’ play-by-play announcer. Former WWL-TV anchor Mike Hoss is also a finalist, as well as Pelicans broadcasters Joel Meyers and Sean Kelley.

“Jim was very special to all of us in our careers,” Strief said. “I was on the field for so many (moments), but I don’t remember what it looked like to me on the field. I remember the replay and hearing Jim.”

What Strief is trying to do is out of the ordinary. Former players sit in broadcast booths all over the country, but most of the players handle the color job, providing analysis, and there are no NFL broadcast teams that feature two players, as the WWL booth would do with Strief handling play-by-play and Deuce McAllister in the color job.

“What’s great about play-by-play is that it is different, and it’s a challenge. It’s seeing the game through a different mindset, and it’s bringing the game to an everyday fan,” Strief said. “I won’t be a finished product in September or August, but it’s something I think that would be very special and unique to the Saints to have two players in the booth.”

Knowing how difficult play-by-play could be, Strief spent most of the offseason after his March retirement announcement preparing for the job. A graduate of Northwestern — a premier school for broadcasters — Strief reached out to Wildcats coach Pat Fitzgerald and asked for a list of names to pick their brains.

Then he got into the video.

Strief estimates that he’s called 100 games on video this summer, listened to the replay over again, made changes and sent those tapes off to people to critique.

About the job

A play-by-play job takes a lot of work, and Strief understood that immediately, so he spent a lot of time preparing for his auditions with McAllister.

“I kind of tried to reach out to any resource I could that had experience in it,” Strief said. “Obviously, it’s a difficult job. I have a ton of respect for the people that do it, and you quickly become enamored with a few guys that you listen to. It’s something that I’d certainly have to grow into.”

More than anything, the play-by-play role requires a broadcaster to call the game and serve as host. With that in mind, Strief has focused a lot of his research on people with hosting experience.

“There’s a hosting capacity that goes with that role. It’s easier for me to call a play. My mind processes that information well,” Streif said. “It’s the hosting part of it.”

For Strief, it’s been a very different offseason. A lot of work, just as when he was a player, but a different kind of work.

Learning to call games was a lot more enjoyable than preparing his body for the rigors of an NFL season.

“That to me was the hard part later in my career, was getting ready,” Strief said. “I loved playing football, but this was certainly the time of the year that I struggled. It’s nice to not have to go through it, but in a couple of months, I’ll wish I was still doing it.”

Unless he’s hard at work at a new role, seated high above the field in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome.

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