Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, December 12, 1993                   TAG: 9312110082
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: C-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Jack Bogaczyk
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

DOING PLAY-BY-PLAY THE RIGHT PRESCRIPTION FOR PUNCH

Punch will call the play-by-play on his third consecutive Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl telecast today (noon, ESPN). Those opportunities to work a game in the booth have been rare for Punch, whose Stagg Bowl eve preparations weren't exactly what the doctor ordered.

As he watched videotapes and studied facts and figures, Punch also was playing physician heal thyself.

"I've got the flu," Punch said. "They say doctors never get sick. Well, I'm living off coffee and cough drops, and later on I'm going to dig into that nice fruit basket the bowl committee gave me."

Mike Gottfried, Punch's ESPN booth partner for today's Mount Punch Union-Rowan game, appropriately played analyst Thursday night at dinner and told Punch to go to bed. The doctor listened, and he felt a bit better Friday.

"This is just my luck," said Punch, who has told ESPN he'd like to have more play-by-play work after several years of working college football sidelines and the pits on NASCAR coverage.

Several weeks ago, he got a call he'd been waiting for - his first play-by-play assignment on a CFA game, for Arkansas-LSU. Then, a few days later, Boston College upset Notre Dame and West Virginia beat Miami.

Punch was told he was needed to double the sidelines with today's Stagg Bowl sideline reporter, Sharlene Hawkes, at the WVU-BC game on Nov. 26. That scrubbed his play-by-play date the next day.

"It made me feel good that they thought I needed to be there, to file SportsCenter reports from Boston on Thanksgiving and work an important game," he said. "Still, I'd have liked to do the play-by-play."

Punch had four videotapes he was watching to write a prescription for his assignment today. One was last year's Stagg Bowl he called. The others were calls by ESPN's Ron Franklin, Mike Patrick and Brad Nessler.

"I watch and listen to how they do certain things," Punch said. "They're all great play-by-play guys. I watch how they do things, like how Ron works the starting lineup into the start of the game, or Brad injecting humor into a telecast. I can definitely learn something."

The viewers who watch Punch do more than 60 telecasts annually know he's a doctor and they know he's very knowledgeable about racing and knows how to wedge information into a show from the sideline, but they probably don't know he once played quarterback for Lou Holtz.

"Well, I was more an apprentice tackling dummy," said Punch, who was a walk-on, backup quarterback for Holtz at North Carolina State in 1971 and '72, a career that ended with a knee injury.

"We ran the veer and, basically, I just tried to give our team a good look at the opponent. I had a decent arm, but not a lot of height or speed.

"Coach Holtz told me one day, `Punch, it's not that you're slow. You just reach your maximum speed quicker than everyone else.' I thought that was a compliment until I thought about it for a while."

Punch, 40, graduated from N.C. State in 1975, then earned his medical degree in '79 from Bowman Gray Medical School at Wake Forest. A native of Newton, N.C., Punch began his announcing career in '75 as a track announcer at Hickory (N.C.) Speedway.

That wasn't his first racing, however. He helped build engines for several drivers, including Harry Gant and Tommy Houston, while he was in high school.

During his college years, he drove a Hobby division '56 Chevy after he started working for Jerry Setzer. While Punch and Setzer worked on the car, Setzer's infant son sat in the garage and watched. That son is Dennis Setzer, who will join the Busch Grand National circuit in 1994.

"I grew up as an avid sports fan, and I have a job now that a lot of physicians and other people in this country would love to have. I grew up in a rural area and I dreamed. My parents told me to dream and they'd take care of the rest. I've been very fortunate."

As director of emergency-room services at Memorial Hospital-Flagler in Bunnell, Fla., Punch delegates authority and communicates daily with his staff when he's off sportscasting.

Punch, who has homes in Ormond Beach, Fla., and Boone, N.C., usually makes contact with the emergency room staff by phone, fax or computer modem. Today, his co-workers will hear him from the booth. To Punch, that really is a good prescription.