By Mike Woitalla
Executive Editor, Soccer America Magazine

Veteran baseball broadcaster Dave OÆBrien heads U.S. TVÆs World Cup team.

Dave OÆBrien was a seventh grader in Marlboro, N.H., when he started playing soccer.

''I loved to run and I remember thinking thereÆs great freedom in this sport,'' said OÆBrien, who went on to be a three-year starter on the varsity team at Marlboro High School, where he also lettered in baseball and basketball. ''I was thinking soccer is great fun, not realizing a revolution was about to start for the sport.''

Although he excelled on the field, diamond and court, his dream since the age of 12 was to be a play-by-play man.

At 19, he called his first sports event, a high school soccer playoff match aired by Keene, N.H., radio station WKNE.

The successful radio and TV career that followed included plenty of baseball, basketball and football, but more than two decades would pass before OÆBrien, 42, returned to where it all started. HeÆs heading the ABC/ESPN broadcast team at the 2006 World Cup.

''I was in the middle of contract negotiations and they asked me what I might be interested in doing,'' OÆBrien says. ''I said, 'I would love to do a handful of games at the World Cup,Æ because I enjoy soccer so much.''

OÆBrien will serve as play-by-play commentator on 20 games, including the opener, all U.S. games, a semifinal and the final.

''It evolved beyond my wildest dreams, because I was thinking maybe four or five games,'' says OÆBrien, who attended Syracuse University because of its reputation as a cradle for sportscasting: alumni include Bob Costas, Marv Albert and dozens of other broadcasters.

OÆBrien succeeded in landing spots on Syracuse sports broadcasts, but soccer wasnÆt an option.

''When I was a teenager,'' he says, ''we had the whole Cosmos explosion with Pele. But after that faded, there werenÆt opportunities in soccer, and I gravitated to basketball, baseball and football.''

He had, as a child, watched PBSÆs ''Soccer Made in Germany'' and he enjoyed the grainy reel-to-reel tapes his high school coach showed the team. He followed soccer in adulthood and coached his children, but his work came in other sports. Fifteen years of baseball included work on ESPNÆs Monday Night Baseball and as the voice of the Florida Marlins and the New York Mets.

He called the longest game in baseballÆs postseason history, last yearÆs record-setting 18-inning, six-hour Atlanta-Houston game.

''I have the bladder of six men,'' jokes OÆBrien.

HeÆs handled Major League BaseballÆs international broadcasts of the World Series since 2004 but now looks forward to the biggest world championship of them all, even if it means a daunting amount of homework.

''Just for the first round,'' he says, ''IÆve got to know 18 countries.''

When his daughters, Samantha, 13, and Katie, 11, come home from school, they find their father watching hours of taped soccer games. They both play on traveling teams and usually end up joining him on the couch.

What he quickly noticed when doing his first U.S. and MLS games earlier in the year is that itÆs a lot easier identifying a basketball player from courtside than a soccer player from high up in the stadium booth.

''YouÆve got to go to the practices and learn to recognize the players, their running cadence, and be aware of whoÆs dyed his hair blond and what color shoes theyÆre wearing,'' he says.

Then thereÆs the challenge of providing background in a game with few breaks.

''ItÆs a delicate balance,'' he says. ''ItÆs a dance. In soccer itÆs not easy. No timeouts, itÆs the ultimate game of flow and I need to respect that special rhythm and pace that sets soccer apart from the other games.''

On the other hand, OÆBrien realizes there are aspects of the World Cup that make his job easier.

''The picture and the sounds coming through the television will be greater than anything I can say,'' OÆBrien says. ''I can keep my mouth shut and let that atmosphere breathe, let the game breathe. There isnÆt a whole lot you can do to screw up a World Cup game based on what people are telling me and what IÆve seen.''

(This article originally appeared in the June 2006 issue of Soccer America Magazine.)