Speaker Series: Arthur Cooper, International Racetrack Commentator
Arthur Cooper visited Tucson last week to speak to students about the art of race commentary or race calling as it is better known in United States Mr. Cooper was born and raised in Australian, lives in England, and is the racetrack commentator (announcer) in France. He grew up going to the races from an early age as his dad was an avid racing fan. His father would always buy the racing form and Arthur would pour over the data. His grandfather was a racehorse trainer.
At an early age Arthur figured out he wanted to be a racetrack announcer, so he followed his passion. He would get together with friends to practice calling the races for fun. At age 28, he received his first opportunity to call a race and by age 40 we got his breakthrough opportunity to a regular race caller. He believes a racetrack announcer is like a salesman, trying to encourage people to bet. He talked to the students about changes in the race calling world as more announcers are now calling off of the television rather than watching the race live. He described the pitfalls with such changes.