BY JOHN PAINTER
GoColgateRaiders.com
Latest in a series of "Where are they now?" features on members of the Colgate athletics family. Click Here for previous profiles.
HAMILTON – Rob Stone mixes the perfect blend of taking chances yet never straying too far from his roots.
The former Colgate University soccer star turned elite-level sports broadcaster joined Fox Sports/Fox Soccer in January after a successful 15-year run at ESPN. And while a seat at the Worldwide Leader's dinner table might be the pinnacle for most, Stone's love of soccer made his move nearly automatic.
“It's been wonderful,” Stone said of the switch. “It's a network on the uptick and soccer obviously is a priority for the Fox Network as a whole, with the World Cup coming our way down the road.
“So it's an exciting time to be with them and it's been a great move for me.”
Stone played soccer at Colgate from 1987-90, serving as team captain his senior year en route to earning All-Patriot League first team honors in the debut season of the league's existence. He finished his career as Colgate's all-time assist leader with 15 (now second).
Connecticut to Colgate
Stone grew up in Simsbury, Conn., and knew quite a bit about Colgate. Problem was, the Colgate coaching staff at the time, including head coach Mike Doherty, didn't know a thing about Stone.
“I pretty much recruited myself,” Stone recalled with a laugh. “I showed up at Colgate one beautiful fall practice day, walked around campus and told Coach Doherty, 'I'm prepared to go early commitment.' He said, 'That's great, but I'd love to maybe find out who you are and see you play before we take you.'”
Stone's plan in high school was to compete on the Division I soccer level and use those skills to get into a school that might otherwise have been considered “a slight reach.”
“I wanted to elevate the academic world I would enter and use soccer to help me get that,” he said. “Colgate turned out to be the answer.”
After graduation in 1991, Stone returned to Simsbury and spent time as the local high school's volunteer soccer coach. One of his team members turned out to be
Erik Ronning, Colgate's current head men's coach.
“I should get some of the credit for steering him to Colgate,” Stone said. “I kind of opened his eyes to what a great fit it might be and he ended up following a very similar route to what I did at Colgate, through the social path, the soccer and the academic life.
“And when the head-coaching opportunity came open at Colgate in 2005, I let everybody know Erik was a great fit. I love the fact that I have these long-standing ties to the men's soccer program even though I didn't play for the current coach.”
Move into Broadcasting
After that good deed of steering his protégé to Hamilton, Stone soon began working for nearby ESPN as a production assistant on Sports Center and other shows. That experience led to sports anchoring jobs in Albany, Ga., and Tampa, Fla., before Stone returned once again to his Connecticut roots at the ESPN headquarters.
From there, he simply began laying out his career path by – you guessed it – not being afraid to take a few risks and embracing the niche sports that are so much a part of the ESPN fabric.
“One of the great things about my time there was I had a wide palate of sports to work on, from college football, college basketball, all my soccer work,” Stone said.
But it was bowling where Stone made his biggest impact.
Stone spent four years (2007-11) as lead play-by-play announcer for the Professional Bowlers Association telecasts. His catch phrases became legendary and were absorbed into the lexicon of bowling culture, first by the fans and then by the bowlers themselves.
Hambone!
Most famous was Stone's use of the term “hambone” to mean four strikes in a row.
“The bowling thing just kind of happened,” he said. “There are elements of what I did on bowling that may end up on my tombstone, which is frightening.
“Not a week goes by where somebody will not bring up bowling or hambone to me, no matter where I am. It happened in Kansas City recently when I was covering the U.S. men's national team. Somebody engaged me in a bowling conversation, and it was a legit bowling conversation and not someone just pulling my chain.”
Stone has since moved out of the alleys and into the world limelight, covering his first-love soccer on the biggest stages. Stone has worked every World Cup since 1998 in France, and last year he attended the Champions League final in Munich.
“That was my first, one of those 'bucket list' soccer sporting events,” Stone said of Europe's showcase event. “With what I do now, so much of it is actually just sitting in the Fox studio – which is one of the reasons I took the job, to get myself off the road. But I still get to have a few trips here and there.”
Snowfall in Shorts
Stone and his wife, Lynn, have four children: Camden, Chandler, Carson and Ciara. Their home base is Los Angeles, which makes it tough for Stone to get back to Colgate as often as he would like. But of course he treasures those moments when they do come.
“It's funny; I get selfish,” he said. “I want to show Colgate to my kids and my wife – she has visited with me but my kids have not – but I also just want to use every morsel of time to get to New York Pizzeria or Ye Old Pizza Pub, or hit the locker rooms and see the old faces and hang out with my friends.
“I get very Colgate selfish when it comes to soccer reunions or major class reunion times.”
And it's during those occasions when Stone recalls his favorite Colgate memories. Usually involving the weather.
“I remember going to class in shorts and looking out the window and seeing snow falling and thinking, 'That's going to make for an interesting walk home,'” he said. “But Colgate to me is the unbelievably tight connections with teammates and friends. That immediate bond is always right there and we get right back into laughing and having a good time.
“I hope my four kids can enjoy their college experiences as much as I enjoyed my four years at Colgate.”
