Mark Montieth: Hobbled in college, Robbie Hummel could make Final Four as a star broadcaster

The conversation for this article took place in three segments, which is pretty much how it has to be done with Robbie Hummel these days. The “Where’s Waldo?” of basketball broadcasting is likely to show up just about anywhere at any time for any network during his five-month fast break across the college basketball landscape, so you catch him in spurts.

Such as driving to an airport to return a rental car in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, or driving home from Chicago O’Hare International Airport or while in a hotel room following a late-night dinner in Newark, New Jersey.

He will have worked 84 games by the time his broadcasting season ends, which is about 35 more than the industry norm for elite announcers. No need for sympathy, though; it’s his call to call all these games. He does it because he has the lofty ambition of working the television broadcast for Final Four games, backed by a robust work ethic. But he won’t deny there’s something else at play, too—a longing that needs to be addressed.

Hummel is in Indianapolis this weekend for the Big Ten Men’s Basketball Tournament at Gainbridge Fieldhouse. He arrived Tuesday evening and will stay through Sunday’s championship game, a rare stretch of stability. Forgive him if he gets antsy and wants to jump on a plane for a quick round-trip flight to wherever and back, just out of habit. He’s not accustomed to being in one place for so long.

Consider what it took to get here from a geographic standpoint.

Last Thursday, just to pick a starting point, he worked the Iowa-Michigan State game with Kevin Kugler for FS1.

Friday, he drove to the Cedar Rapids airport, flew to O’Hare Airport, drove to his house in the Lincoln Park community, repacked, and drove to Milwaukee in the evening.

Saturday, he called the Marquette-St. John’s early-afternoon game with Brandon Gaudin for Fox, drove back to O’Hare and flew to Newark.

Sunday, he and Gaudin called the early-afternoon Rutgers-Minnesota game for the Big Ten Network. He flew to Asheville, North Carolina, that evening.

Monday, he called the championship game of the Southern Conference tournament between Furman and Wofford with Ryan Radtke for Westwood One radio.

Tuesday, he flew back to O’Hare, went home, repacked and drove to Indianapolis for the Big Ten tournament. He called games for Peacock on Wednesday and for the Big Ten Network on Thursday and Friday. He will be part of the crew in the on-site studio on Saturday and Sunday.

Coming up, he’ll work NCAA tournament games for Turner Sports and then shift to radio for the Final Four.

Then, finally, he’ll do a one-off for NBC at the Nike Hoops Summit on April 12.

And then, at last, he’ll get a break—a long break that qualifies as fair exchange for his frenzied labor.

“You’re going crazy for five months, and you’re doing nothing for seven,” he said. “It is a grind, and there’s a point in time I need to take some time away and go somewhere. And it feels nice just to be at home—just to be at home and get a routine.”

Now consider what it took to get here from a career standpoint.

Hummel had one of basketball’s all-time hard-luck playing careers, both at Purdue and in the NBA. To describe it in detail is a whole other story that would threaten the boundaries of cyberspace. Let’s just say it would be a gross understatement to claim he was snakebit by injuries.

There was a back injury as a sophomore that kept him out of five games. The anterior cruciate ligament tear in his right knee as a junior. The reinjury of the knee on the first day of practice before what was supposed to be his senior season. Each of those knee injuries cost Purdue legitimate chances to reach the Final Four and contend for a national championship.

He finished his college career amid a rebuilding season as a fifth-year senior. But he had been a first-team all-Big Ten selection three times and received honorable mention all-America recognition twice, which was enough to convince Minnesota to draft him in the second round of the 2012 NBA draft.

The professional game, however, presented its own field of land mines. Another knee injury while playing for a team in Spain. A broken right hand in his second season with Minnesota. A shoulder injury with an Italian team.

The hand injury was the most impactful because he was gaining traction with the Timberwolves. He had seven points and four rebounds in the fourth quarter of a comeback victory over the Pacers at the fieldhouse in January of 2015, then had nine points in 17 minutes against Phoenix, and followed that with his NBA highlight: 15 points and 13 rebounds while playing 42 ½ minutes as a starter in a victory at Denver. He started the next game as well but broke his hand when it struck the granite chest of Atlanta’s 260-pound center, Pero Antic while chasing a third quarter rebound.

When he injured his back while merely shooting around a couple of years later, he knew it was time to wake up from his dream of returning to the NBA.

“This is a sign,” he told himself. “This is not meant to be.”

He did have one last moment of playing glory when he was voted MVP of the gold-medal-winning U.S. team in the FIBA 3×3 tournament in The Netherlands in 2019. By then, however, he was committed to his broadcasting career.

He claims a “weird interest” in who announced his games at Purdue, and thought it was “cool” when the bigger names did them. He tested his curiosity by participating in the Broadcaster U program sponsored by the National Basketball Players Association in two of his off-seasons and had an audition with ESPN, as well.

He quickly caught on with both the Big Ten Network and ESPN upon retirement. But there’s no training camp for broadcasters, no way to ease into the job gradually. “They throw you into the fire quickly,” he said.

His first game as a color commentator for a television broadcast came at Purdue. It turned out to be a more harrowing experience than anything he experienced as a player.

“When the red light goes on it’s, ‘Holy —-, I have to form coherent thoughts here. I have to make some sense,’” he said.

“At halftime I was thinking, ‘This is going horribly. I’m saying things I don’t mean, I’m word-vomiting.’ But the second half went better.”

He has continued improving, with repetition and preparation. He must be, because he’s offered more games than he can handle, which is saying something. He receives widespread praise for his insightful, even-handed approach, even from Indiana fans. That’s also saying something.

Although there was the man who objected to him working an IU game in Assembly Hall.

“The first time I went there an older gentleman came up to me and told me it was a tragedy they were allowing me to call games on the floor,” Hummels recalls. “But they’ve been really nice there.”

Ironically, most of the criticism directed at Hummel, at least on social media, comes from Purdue fans who believe he tries so hard not to show favoritism when calling their games that he displays bias against them. That stings given his feelings toward the university and coach Matt Painter, with whom he lived for six months while rehabbing his shoulder injury.

He was concerned enough about the complaints to rewatch some of his broadcasts and ask others to do the same to render judgement on his neutrality. He stands behind his approach.

“It’s hard to hear that sometimes because you care about a place, but you understand what the job is,” he says. “It takes a while to disengage [from loyalty to your school] but you also understand where your paycheck is coming from. I remember asking Steve Bardo [a former Illinois player who also calls Big Ten games] about that when I was playing. How do you be objective about the team you played for? He said, ‘I know where my paycheck comes from.’”

That degree of professionalism is one of the qualities that makes Hummel, 36, a rising star. Same goes for his work ethic, which is appreciated by broadcast partners such as Gaudin, a risen star.

“As soon as I met him [in 2018], I saw his drive and determination to be good at it,” said Gaudin, an Evansville native and Butler graduate who broadcast Butler’s basketball games from 2010 to 2013. “Some people are born on third base, but Rob actually hit a triple to get where he is. And knowing Rob, he’s running through the stop sign, and he’s going to score. Anyone this determined is going to get where he wants to be.

“He’s as hard-working an analyst as I’ve ever been around.”

Hummel had an exceptional level of maturity and work ethic as a player, so it’s in his nature. But he would be considered a hard worker without schlepping to 84 games a season and preparing diligently for each one.

Fact is, all of the disappointments of his playing career, which prevented him from playing in a Final Four and cut short his NBA career, drive him to another level. Despite all the honors, his playing career feels like a rimmed-out free throw.

It’s not an unusual source of motivation. Connecticut coach Danny Hurley, whose teams have won the past two NCAA tournaments, admitted in a “60 Minutes” segment last Sunday that his maniacal approach comes from failing to live up to expectations as a player. His father, Bob, is a legendary high school coach who won 26 state titles. His older brother, Bobby, played on four of those championship teams and then led Duke to NCAA titles in 1991 and 1992. He also was a first-team all-American selection and a first-round pick in the NBA draft in 1993.

Danny played at Seton Hall but couldn’t match up to his father and brother. The pressure of keeping up caused him to walk away from the team and quit school two games into the 1993-1994 season. He returned to complete the final two seasons of his college career but fell well short of his brother’s accomplishments.

“I failed to live up to, play up to, succeed up to, the Hurley standard in basketball,” he said in the “60 Minutes” interview. “It caused a lot of pain.

“I’ve got to make up for what I didn’t achieve as a player, and I’ve got to make up for that right now as a coach because my career eats away at me still.”

Hummel can relate.

“I was pretty driven as a player, so when that gets taken away, or it doesn’t go the way you want … the way everything went down … you’re in the NBA one day and out of it so quickly.

“It probably does [motivate me]. I’d say that’s a fair statement. If I had a different playing career, who knows if I’d have the same career here?”

Nobody knows. But it doesn’t matter now. Hummel will stay on the run, chasing his dream of reaching the Final Four one way or another.•

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Montieth, an Indianapolis native, is a longtime newspaper reporter and freelance writer. He is the author of three books: “Passion Play: Coach Gene Keady and the Purdue Boilermakers,” “Reborn: The Pacers and the Return of Pro Basketball to Indianapolis,” and “Extra Innings: My Life in Baseball,” with former Indianapolis Indians President Max Schumacher.