Syracuse athletics has a new radio home, no more Coach Mac color commentating football games and ‘Midnight Madness’ returning for the men’s basketball team, Director of Athletics Daryl Gross announced Monday in what turned out to be a multi-faceted press conference.

SU athletics has reached a deal with Galaxy Communications to make 99.5 WTKW-FM, known as TK99, the flagship station for SU sports. Galaxy stations will broadcast Syracuse football, men’s and women’s basketball and men’s lacrosse, along with pregame and postgame shows and the Jim Boeheim and Greg Robinson shows. Football, men’s basketball and men’s lacrosse will be on TK99. Women’s basketball will be aired on 1200 WTLA-AM.

‘We wanted a radio station that is going to embrace us, where we were the priority, where everything revolved around Syracuse Athletics,’ Gross said.

Another major change includes the broadcast booth for football games. Former SU football head coach Dick MacPherson is being moved from his color commentating duties to work on the pregame and postgame shows. Former SU All-American tight end Chris Gendey will replace MacPherson.

‘We are bringing (MacPherson) with us whenever we can,’ Gross said. ‘We found a way to keep him in the mix.’

The press conference also included the announcement that Midnight Madness is returning to SU. Midnight Madness is an event across college campuses around the nation to mark the opening of college basketball season. The NCAA allows practice to start at midnight on a given night in October.

SU has toyed with Midnight Madness in the past. Boeheim told The Daily Orange in October 2005 that he wasn’t a fan of Midnight Madness.

‘I’ve never bought into it,’ Boeheim said. ‘You get two good practices in versus no good practices in.’

Galaxy’s CEO Ed Levine said Boeheim ‘graciously agreed’ to host it. The date and venue for the event is still undetermined, Gross said.

‘I’ve always been mystified as to why we didn’t have a Midnight Madness event to kick off the practice season for the basketball team,’ Levine said. ‘This year, with Coach Boeheim having a top recruiting class coming in, it seemed like the perfect time to make a big deal of the first time these guys are going to play together.’

Published on April 24, 2007 at 12:00 pm