Rich Leaf leaves a mark on the Hynes Center
February 11, 2015
The name Rich Leaf might not sound familiar to you. However, if you have attended an Iona basketball home game over the last few years, his voice would sound familiar.
Leaf serves as the public address announcer for the Iona men’s and women’s basketball home games. He began in this role in January 2011.
While he has been at Iona for just a few years, Leaf has been a public address announcer for almost 35 years.
He is the longtime voice of local high school basketball and began announcing the public high school sectional playoff games at the Westchester County Center in 1981.
“I love high school and college basketball,” he said. “I have the best seat in the house; I’m right there at midcourt.”
Leaf dabbled in public address announcing in high school before he went to Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, where he did radio play-by-play announcing for the school’s football and basketball teams.
After returning to New York, Leaf, a Scarsdale native, embarked on a teaching career. He also continued radio announcing, calling high school games for a local station in Mount Kisco, N.Y.
Then, in 1981, the basketball chairman of Section One (the jurisdiction which encompasses public high schools in Westchester, Putnam, Rockland and Dutchess counties) asked Leaf to fill in as public address announcer for a day at the championship tournament. The following day, Leaf was in attendance as a fan, and the chairman needed him to announce again.
“I’ve been doing it ever since; it was one of those Wally Pipp stories,” Leaf said, referring to the start of Lou Gehrig’s historic streak of 2,130 consecutive games played.
In addition to serving as the public address announcer for the high school basketball playoffs, Leaf does numerous other games, showcases and tournaments throughout the year. This list includes the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) Tournament, the Slam Dunk Tournament, Coaches vs. Cancer showcases, Scarsdale and Mamaroneck high school games and the Section One football bowl games, which were played before the institution of the state playoffs in the 1993 season.
It was at the Slam Dunk Tournament in December 2010, when Leaf was approached by Brian Beyrer, Iona’s associate athletics director for communications, about coming to work at Iona. Leaf was delighted at the opportunity.
“It’s fun to be here, and it’s great basketball here at Iona,” Leaf said. “One of the great things about being here at Iona is there are so many really great people around here. You get to know the guys who work at the [scorers’ table].”
Leaf estimates that he announces over 100 games a year. There is much more that goes into doing public address announcing than simply saying the player who scored the last basket.
Prior to the game, Leaf goes over pronunciations with representatives from each school to make sure that he knows the correct way to announce the players’ names and hometowns. During the game, he keeps track of how many fouls each player and team has so he can announce this information.
“It’s not just sitting back and announcing the game,” he said. “There are a lot of reads that you do; you start 20 minutes before the game, and you’re working at halftime.”
While announcing keeps him plenty busy, Leaf also taught eighth grade social studies in the Harrison, N.Y., school district for 34 years. He retired from this post in 2004.
“[Public address announcing is] great, and for someone retired, like myself, it’s almost like a ‘new career,’” he said. “That’s what retirement really should be; it doesn’t mean you lay on the couch all day. You don’t retire; you restructure.”
As Leaf continues to be the voice of the Gaels, he will continue to help make the Hynes Athletics Center a great place to take in a basketball game.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article listed the byline incorrectly. This article was written by Ian Sacks, Managing Editor.