SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
If you are a soccer fan, you might have heard his color commentary on Goal TV or CBS Sports. We are talking about the magisterial Ray Hudson.
(SOUNDBITE OF MONTAGE)
RAY HUDSON: They are off like a teenager in a hot rod, and that is a cross between Arabia and a sledgehammer.
The coolness of a Greyhound's nose...
A terabyte of skill in a nanosecond.
DETROW: Hudson has been a player, a coach and, for more than two decades, a commentator and recently announced he is retiring. And over the course of that long career, perhaps his true trademark is his colorful use of language and creative superlatives.
(SOUNDBITE OF MONTAGE)
HUDSON: Trying to stop him is trying to nail Jell-O to the ceiling.
Onto it like Dracula with a plate of liver.
If you showed him a Rorschach blotch, he'd see a goal every time, Phil.
DETROW: Ray Hudson, welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. You're bringing up the energy of NPR today with those clips.
HUDSON: Nice to be on board NPR with you, Scott. And hell, I haven't heard some of those lines for years...
DETROW: Yeah.
HUDSON: ...Decades. So it's - yeah, great memories.
DETROW: Do you have a personal favorite over the years?
HUDSON: There's too many to mention.
DETROW: Yeah.
HUDSON: I mean, honestly, you know, the sloppy as a soup sandwich - playing poker with a witch, you're going to lose. I think sloppy as a soup sandwich. I don't know where that came from. But the night before, I was having some ham-and-pease-pudding sandwiches, a delicacy from England. And that just came to my mind.
DETROW: That was my next question. I'm sure you've gotten this question six trillion times, but do you just have an inspiration and write it down on a notebook? Are you a freestyle kind of guy? Where does this artistry come from?
HUDSON: It's a mix of both, in all honesty, Scott. It's like I have a rolodex in my mind, and I save things from the most ridiculous circumstances of watching "Alice In Wonderland" or hearing something on the news. And I think, like, that would fit in great if that happened. But it's picking that moment in that split-second of artistry that you have to delve into that rolodex and...
DETROW: Yeah.
HUDSON: ...And to do them justice because these were, in the years I've been commentating, the greatest football players of all time, and I always felt as if I needed to stretch the English language and come up with some hyperbole. Call it what you will. I don't care. I steal from the best. Shakespeare was my muse as much as Messi was. But the ridiculous nature of it - connected with people, Scott...
DETROW: Yeah.
HUDSON: ...On an enormous level around the world, and they were relating as much as what they were hearing as what they were seeing. And combined, we got slices of magic.
DETROW: What, to you, is, like, the main role of a commentator in a game? Obviously, people are watching on TV, so they see the play happening. Are you explaining the match? Are you helping people get excited and invested in it? Are you just trying to connect with whoever's watching around the world?
HUDSON: God, I wish I'd give it that much consideration over the span of time. I was just being me.
DETROW: Yeah.
HUDSON: I didn't ask for this job. This was just completely authentic, the fruit nut case (ph). You know, somebody that was schooled through Dickens with my father and a wonderful English teacher called Sally Herdman (ph) that provided that impetus and that encouragement to stretch the English language and dive deep. And it was a great journey. It had as many twists and turns as a plate of spaghetti for me, and I look forward to every game, to transmit the drama and the calamities and the sadness that all go on inside that 90-minute game of football.
DETROW: Yeah. Let me ask about somebody you're closely tied to. You are calling it a career in the broadcast booth. We know that one day, at some point down the line sooner rather than later, Lionel Messi will do the same on the pitch. You have called him King Leo. You've called him a medical man with a flaming sphere. You've said his ball control is softer than a mother's kiss. I could go on and on and fill out the rest of the segment. I mean, what did he mean to you personally? What does him in America right now mean to you for the future of soccer?
HUDSON: The most incredible part of that whole saga is that Messi followed me to Fort Lauderdale. You couldn't find a bookie in Las Vegas to take a bet on that five years ago. He didn't literally follow me, but he ended up here in my backyard. It's astonishing how we both ended up in the same postage stamp on the soccer universe.
He's the greatest player that has ever graced the game. He was the perfect example of something that needs to be described, and you cannot. How do you describe candlelight? It's impossible. And that was my challenge with Lionel Messi.
But every week, he gave me another rung to go up that wonderful ladder and try to encapsulate it and try to capture it. And evidently, by the multitude of responses that I've received from all over the world, in a deluge since I announced my retirement, it connected.
DETROW: That is the iconic soccer commentator Ray Hudson. Ray, if I ever had to eat a soup sandwich, I would eat it with you.
HUDSON: (Laughter) Thank you, lad. Thanks, Scott.
DETROW: Thanks.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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