It was October 4, and Pingry Varsity Boys Soccer was playing a tight game against Watchung Hills. Among the parents and fans in the stands was Andrew Hefner ’28, broadcasting the game, and his friend Ryan Kaufman ’28, providing color commentary. With the help of Assistant Director of Communications, Social Media Strategy & Athletics Alex Nanfara, they had a table setup with computers, mixers, and headsets, allowing them to call the game over the livestream on Hudl. Andrew was ready. He had done his research, familiarizing himself with the rosters and backstory to all the players and the programs. Key among his prep was a 23-page document he found that they could periodically refer to, filled with synonyms and phrases for calling different moments in a soccer game. Andrew drew Ryan’s attention to the two pages under Passing, which listed 56 colorful ways to call a pass (Nice passing movement—beautifully done this) or (You can see what the idea was). It would come in particularly handy during a soccer game. Weeks later, as Ryan recalled the lengthy list, he laughed. “Andrew was like, ‘Yeah, we need some synonyms’”, he said, “because otherwise we’re just going to be repeating the word pass eighty times.”
Shortly after the game started, Andrew’s steady, reassuring cadence picked up speed and he began shouting in excitement:
Hefner: Lopez! Past the goalie! Still has control! Lopez… GOOOAL! Goal! Pingry! Big Blue! Sophomore Julian Lopez 9th goal of the season! And Pingry opens the score early, just 5 minutes in…
Andrew Hefner is a throwback. He doesn’t want to be the star athlete on the field. He wants to be the announcer calling the play. He watches games differently from most people. Not only is he studying the players and plays on the field, he’s studying the announcers and the way they call the game.
He first realized he wanted to be a broadcaster at the age of nine, and just a few years later, when he was in Grade 5, he attended his first sports broadcasting camp. “I was one of the youngest,” he recalls.
Back then, he used to listen to the WFAN radio announcer Keith McPherson. “I listened to him for so many years as I would go to sleep,” Andrew says. “He’s been a big inspiration to me.” He’s come a long way since listening to games past his bedtime. He now calls many of Pingry’s games, has his own podcast, and writes game recaps for the popular site A Daly Dose of Hoops. He’s even had a chance to interview Mr. McPherson. He has covered Princeton college basketball regularly, attending the games and press conferences afterward, waiting his turn to ask questions, something that is still “uncomfortable”, especially as he’s frequently the youngest reporter in the room. “But as I make some more of those connections, it gets easier to be able to talk to these people,” he enthuses.
He’s still working on developing his own catchphrase. “I think the problem is so many of them are taken already and you risk sounding cliché when you’re trying to go for one,” he admits. “Once I do more research and figure out one that really hasn’t been too popularized yet…. I gotta figure out how it could be a play on Pingry or Big Blue.”
His craziest sports take? Andrew is adamant there should be a salary cap in the MLB (too late for the Mets, Pete Alonso fans). “I don’t like seeing the Dodgers keep winning and just keep signing the biggest guys,” he says, with some awareness of irony since he is, admittedly, a Yankees fan. “It would be nice to see the playing field get leveled out a bit.”
Andrew and Ryan were the broadcasters for Friday Night Lights, have called the play by play for soccer (where they also interviewed varsity soccer player Ryan Dicks, who was injured, during the game) and the more fast-paced hockey, and now, with basketball season, Andrew is calling those games, too (Ryan will not be providing color commentary, since he will be on the court playing). The guidance he has received along the way from Mr. Nanfara has been instrumental in making it all come together, ever since that first email Andrew sent to him introducing himself. “[Mr. Nanfara] was really, really excited,” Andrew shares, “he would check in with me, especially at the beginning of the year and as he was still helping to facilitate a lot of it… It’s great energy and he’s very invested in it. He wants to make each broadcast better than the last.”
His interests—and his future—are taking shape. “Some days he may say to you, ‘I want to be calling the World Cup’, or ‘I want to be the Yankees broadcaster’”, shares his mom, Karen Hefner. “And other days he may say I want to manage a team, or…. he’s expressed interest in being a journalist for a top publication. But to me, with the education he is getting, and with the activities he is taking part in, and the things that he is investigating, I think that he is ripe to do anything in the sports field.”
And although the way we consume content is changing, from clunky radios to polished podcasts, Andrew has no doubt that broadcasting will remain a vital part of the sports viewing experience. “Every single sports moment that you can think of, that you have a memory of, there’s been a voice calling it and making it more special for you and enhancing that experience,” he says passionately. “Whether that’s Joe Buck and the Minneapolis Miracle, or when the World Series ends and John Sterling says ‘the Yankees win!’.... All of those memories have someone there that worked hard to prepare for that moment and had their saying at the end.” For Andrew, it’s not just about calling the play. It’s about capturing the heart of the moment, being the iconic voice that narrates a moment that becomes part of our collective memory.
“It’s showing you what the human emotion of that moment was,” he says thoughtfully. “And for hockey or football, when the players are wearing their helmets and pads, you can’t see what they’re thinking, but you know there is this one person in the stadium who is meant to convey that emotion, who is able to do that for you.”
Whether he is calling Friday Night Lights football or Big Blue Basketball, Andrew Hefner is determined to call the plays accurately and in a way that engages avid sports fans. And if one day—perhaps sooner rather than later?—he calls the World Cup, he’ll no doubt have that document handy of all the memorable ways to call a pass. Perhaps, by that time, he’ll even have the perfect catchphrase.
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To contact the author: Sara Courtney
Photos by Chris Birrittella '28