ormer Bucknell broadcaster Bob Behler will take over the University of Massachusetts football and basketball play-by-play duties on radio station WHMP.

The position opened up at the end of July when Marc Vandermeer announced he was leaving to become the broadcaster for football, basketball and baseball at the University of Miami.

Behler will deliver his first UMass broadcast on Sept. 11, when the Minutemen host New Hampshire in the football season opener. Behler will handle play-by-play duties for football and men's basketball.

Former UMass coach Bob Pickett will be his broadcast partner for the football season. Pickett, who filled in on the air during the playoffs last year, will move into that position full time, replacing Jim Bowman.

Jack Leaman and Skip Connors will return for the basketball broadcasts.

ecause he�s a professional, football fans tuning into Saturday�s radio broadcast of the Bucknell-Morgan State game won�t know that this will be Bob Behler�s final broadcast as voice of the Bison until he tells them.

New UMass radio man Bob Behler.

Behler, who�s been doing play-by-play on Bucknell sports � football, basketball and baseball � broadcasts for 13 years, admits that Saturday�s finale will be a little emotional for him.

�It will probably get tough at the end, what I say when I sign off,� Behler said. �I�ve thought about it a little bit. I don�t think you can be somewhere for 13 years and not be emotional at the last game.�

But that won�t prevent him from presenting another entertaining, well-crafted, high-quality broadcast to his central Susquehanna Valley listening audience.

Because he�s a pro, Behler is leaving Lewisburg for Amherst, Mass., to became the new voice of the University of Massachusetts. It�s a rung up on the broadcasting ladder of success. It�s an opportunity to be heard statewide, on 17 stations for basketball and six for football, as opposed to the two stations that air Bucknell broadcasts. It�s a chance to be heard in a major market � Boston � with its media size and influence.

�It wasn�t a hard decision, but not because I was looking to leave Bucknell,� he said. �Bucknell has been a tremendous job. But if you want to move up in your career and have a shot at something in the big time, maybe do pro ball or whatever ... It�s a good opportunity for me.�

Behler, 36, began his broadcasting career as a high school freshman in his native Stockton, Cal. As a senior, he was covering all the high school football and basketball games for a local radio station. Next, he took his talents to the University of Georgia, where he broadcast Bulldog games as an undergraduate.

Behler arrived at Bucknell in 1986, after doing baseball for the minor league Chatanooga Lookouts. It�s been human nature, not a paycheck, that has had Behler objectively rooting for Bucknell the past 13 years.

�You get to know the players, the coaching staff, you make friends,� he said. �One of the nice things about Bucknell is you get a lot of great kids who come to school here. It�s been a tremendous experience for me.�

But that affection for the school never translated into unbridled, on-air prejudice, a la a Harry Caray.

�I�ve never been a homer. I saw a quote one time that I abide by. Some broadcaster said, �You root with your heart, not with your mouth,� and that�s kind of my creed. I think you need to be objective and fair and enthusiastic and excited, but I don�t think you need to be biased.

�My voice inflection when Bucknell scores a touchdown, you�re going to tell in my voice that I�m more excited than if Morgan State does something good on Saturday. At the same time, I don�t think you need to trash someone or root on the air.�

Behler, who has also worked CBS Sports national radio broadcasts of the NCAA basketball tournament the past seven years, describes his job in artistic terms.

�Somewhat, radio has become a lost art. I think the key is to paint a picture so that the people who aren�t there are there. Too many people who do games now do them in a TV style, which I don�t consider play-by-play, but view-by-view. You�re describing what�s on a screen. You�re telling people what they�re seeing without painting a picture. The really good radio people, which I aspire to be, can really make you feel like you�re there when you�re not there.�

Behler has limited television experience � a couple of college football games for a Fox station in New York state, and two stints with Ted Turner�s Goodwill Games, in 1990 and �98. But he prefers broadcasting over the audio sprectrum. �I honestly like doing radio better, because radio is you. You can say what you want to say. You paint the picture. On TV, the real star of the show is the director.�

No matter how good the play-by-play is, though, a lot depends on the quality of the game being covered, and who wins and who loses. In Behler�s second year at Bucknell, the Bison played Harvard and Columbia on the road in consecutive weeks. Bucknell lost badly to the Crimson, who utilized an intricate, multi-flex offense.

�I was really ready for it. I got all the pitches, I got the right people handling the ball, and I thought I had a really good broadcast. Nobody said anything about the game,� Behler recalled. A week later against awful Columbia, �We kicked the stuffing out of them ... a big score. It was one of those games where there are a lot of substitutions, and it�s tough to be sharp when the game�s out of hand and there are a lot of kids in the game. So the next week, I got stopped on the street I don�t know how many times: �Oh, great job with the broadcast!� I learned right then and there that Bob Behler sounds a heck of a lot better when your team is winning.�

Of course, Behler is usually just one half of the on-air crew for a Bucknell broadcast. He�s worked with several color commentators, but has special praise for former Lewisburg High School basketball coach Jim Cotner, his partner on Bison hoop broadcasts the past decade.

�It has been a flat-out joy to work with Jim. He is exactly what I look for in a color person, somebody who can bring something to the table that I can�t,� Behler said. �Jim brings a coach�s perspective. If somebody dives into a new defense, Jim recognizes it right away, and can tell you why they did it. I haven�t coached, so I can�t tell you that. To me, the best partner I can have is somebody who, if I�ve drawn the picture, can color something in.�

Of course, it hasn�t all gone smoothly over the years. There was the time in Fairfield (Conn.) when press row occupants kept kicking the phone plug out of the jack during a basketball game.

In 1989, Behler ran into problems at the East Coast Athletic Conference basketball tournament in Towson, Md. It seems that the assembled journalists were assigned phone jacks that didn�t correspond to where they were sitting.

Bucknell had thumped Rider in the first round of the tourney, and the Rider broadcast crew left the arena in a hurry. In their haste, they disconnected the phone line Behler was on.

Behler knew immediately what had happened. Conveniently, the Towson employee who had devised the Stooge-esque arrangement was walking by at the time.

�My pencil snapped in my hand. I reached out with both hands to grab him and tell him what happened, and the people who were with me almost fell out of their chair,� Behler said. �Normally I�m very calm and very patient, but I must have turned about five shades of red. It was probably the only time I really got mad at a game. The next day, we plugged into the line right in front of us.�

Then there was the summer of �94, when Behler was covering a Williamsport Cubs baseball game in Auburn, N.Y. The crew had to broadcast from the top of the metal press box roof, and a thunderstorm rolled in about the fifth inning.

�I have never segued to a rain delay faster. We got ourselves and the equipment off the roof in about four minutes, record time. Up on that roof was not the place to be in an electrical storm.�

Behler�s most memorable broadcasting day at Bucknell came in November of 1996. He had a day-night doubleheader, covering the football Bison in the afternoon when they defeated Colgate in overtime for the Patriot League championship.

�It was just a thrilling game. I was so drained after the game, because it was back-and-forth and then went into overtime,� Behler said. �Then I had to get all the equipment and take it over to Davis Gym,� for Bucknell�s basketball home opener against Robert Morris. �In a game that�s very exciting, you get very tired, and I had zero energy for the basketball game. And I�m sure I was a little hoarse. That�s not a (demo) tape I�d want to send out.�

ORTHAMPTON - The mixture of chaos and excitement in Bob Behler's life right now is reflected in his new office.

New UMass radio man Bob Behler.

Having been on the job for less than a week as the play-by-play man for University of Massachusetts basketball and football for WHMP radio, Behler's work space is still a bit scattered.

On his desk near a pile of papers and books, a copy of the UMass football media guide lies next to a crib sheet he created to learn the starters and top reserves of the Minutemen and their Saturday opponents from New Hampshire.

On the floor is a copy of John Calipari's book, "Refuse to Lose," - required reading for later - and on his face is a smile.

"I'm looking forward to this," said Behler, who was the voice of Bucknell for the past 13 years. "Hopefully everything will be great."

Behler took over the job as "voice of the Minutemen" from Marc Vandermeer, who left the Pioneer Valley to become the radio broadcaster for the University of Miami.

Behler learned of the opening from Vandermeer himself.

"In early August I was sitting on my couch and Marc Vandermeer called me and suggested that I send in a tape," said Behler, who had last spoken with Vandermeer at the 1996 NCAA baseball tournament when UMass and Bucknell were in the same regional. "So I sent them a tape and I guess they liked what they heard."

Switching jobs this late in the summer is unusual.

"I expected to be doing the games at Bucknell this year," Behler said. "If you get to August 1, you don't expect to move."

He's had to scramble to balance moving with broadcast preparation. The furniture has yet to arrive at his new Easthampton home, causing the single 36-year-old to take up residence in a local hotel in the meantime.

Behler made his on-air debut for WHMP Thursday night as host of the Mark Whipple Show and will do his first game broadcast Saturday when the Minutemen open their season at home against New Hampshire at noon. He's anxious to get into the booth.

"I love broadcasting the games," he said. "If you told me I could do anything on a Saturday afternoon, I'd be broadcasting a game. It would be my No. 1 thing to do. I love doing football. College football is more of an event because it's once a week."

The fact that UMass starts a week later than most teams has proven fortunate for Behler. Without missing a UMass game, it allowed him to broadcast one more contest at Bucknell, which gave the Bison people more time to find a replacement.

"I'm very happy that I am doing the first game," said Behler, who has been broadcasting games since he was a high school student in Stockton, Calif. "If you're going to be here for the season, it's nice to be able to do the first game."

After 13 years in Lewisburg, he said, the final broadcast there was emotional.

"They honored me at halftime," Behler said. "They give people that have been around a long time a wooden chair. That was nice. The toughest part of the broadcast was the last part of the postgame show. When you've been some place 13 years, I wanted to say thank you to all the people who had done nice things for me. So I got a little choked up."

Behler's resume is impressive. In addition to being the voice of Bucknell football and basketball, the University of Georgia graduate spent time broadcasting the minor league Chattanooga Lookouts and Williamsport Cubs baseball teams.

CBS radio has used him as a broadcaster in the early rounds of several NCAA men's basketball tournaments.

In fact, he broadcast games in the same regional bracket as UMass during the 1995 and 1997 tournaments.

Currently Behler is trying to tackle a lot of things at once, from his administrative and sales duties at WHMP to learning the players for UMass and UNH.

"Right now, the fire that's burning on the front stove is the game for Saturday," Behler said. "Am I behind for what I would normally be for a regular-season game? Yes."

Style-wise, Behler thinks his on-air manner is pretty straightforward.

"I think I'm accurate and descriptive. I think I'm very prepared," he said. "I think you'll learn something listening to me. I get more excited for the home team, but I'm not a homer. I'm not one to get on the officials. I think I'm fair. I try to make it fun and conversational."

Behler expects that he and his color commentator, former UMass coach Bob Pickett, will work well together.

"I like somebody that can bring something to the broadcast that I can't. He should be able to look at something as a former coach and say, 'they did this or that' and why they did that. I'm not going to do that. I never played football. It becomes my job to paint the picture of what's happening and it's their job to add the whys and to color the stuff in."