I said yes because it sounded fun. Now, though, I'm not so sure.
Since agreeing to do radio color commentary for Friday night's Casino del Sol College All-Star Game, I've grown more nervous by the day.
I've done radio before, but never a game. What if I blank on the player's name? Or say something stupid? Or, given the forecast Friday night at Kino Stadium, freeze my tongue to the microphone?
"You should be scared," Brian Jeffries, the Arizona Wildcats' play-by-play voice since 1987, told me. "If you're not, you won't do a good job."
Dave Sitton, the longtime television announcer who is calling the game for ESPN3, laughed when I shared my growing terror.
"It's kinda like Ted Williams - he knew he wasn't going to have a good at-bat unless he felt like he wanted to throw up," Sitton said. "Richard Burton said the same thing about going on stage."
Great. Now I have to live up to the Splendid Splinter and Hamlet?
"It all comes down to preparation," said Jeffries, who calls UA football, basketball and baseball games on the radio. "You need to know who the players are. The play-by-play guy has to paint the picture in radio; the analyst job comes down to describing each play at a time."
Sounds simple enough. But this stuff is in Jeffries' blood. As a boy, he saved up money to buy Seattle SuperSonics tickets behind the opposing radio announcers, just so he could watch them work.
Me? I'm a writer.
"Unlike your job," said Tim Hagerty, the Tucson Padres' radio guy, "there's no backspace button."
Gulp.
Jody Oehler, who's doing play-by-play for our radio broadcast on 1490-AM and 104.9-FM, joked he'd be happy if I last all 3 1/2 hours.
"My expectation," he said, "is that you're able to talk long enough, and your voice holds up long enough, to get to the end of the game."
Unlike John Fina and Glenn Parker, two Tucsonans that do in-game analysis, I don't have pro football experience to lean on. So the reporter in me clings to research.
I've tried to stock up on factoids about the 100 or so college players looking to earn an NFL gig by impressing scouts Friday night.
That doesn't mean I'll actually get to use the material. Dick Enberg once told Jeffries he used only 20 percent of the background he prepared for a game. Sitton puts the ratio at 15-to-1.
So, memo to Northwest Missouri State defensive end Travis Chappelear, whose father is named Davy Crockett: please do something worth mentioning Friday night.
"You'll enjoy it, but you'll develop a little empathy for announcers," said Dick Tomey, the former UA boss who's coaching the West team and has been a color commentator. "You'll get something out of your mouth - and you'll realize you're dead wrong."
I already have a new respect for radio guys. For football games, Jeffries prepares a chart with each team's two-deep roster on it. In a small box, maybe a 2-inch square, he writes down players' names, numbers, age, hometowns and stats.
He mixes in other research, but not at the expense of slowing down the broadcast.
"You can't get ahead of yourself," he said. "That's one thing in radio. No matter what sport it is. You have to speak on a slight delay so you make sure."
That's what Hagerty, who has called more than 1,000 baseball games, said, too.
"It sounds like a Yogi Berra-ism," he said, "but, only talk about what you're talking about."
Sitton, who once announced a rugby match from atop a forklift in a windstorm, thinks of himself as a friendly waiter. All the hard work behind the scenes should produce a smiling, composed product.
The best color guys do the same.
"They understand," he said, "that their job is to inform and entertain simultaneously."
He swears you can tell when an announcer speaks with a smile on his face. "Have fun," he said.
Fun?
"You'll have fun," Tomey said, reassuringly.
There's that word again.
"Patrick, it's just a game," Jeffries said. "Have fun."
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• Who: Casino del Sol All-Star Game
• Where: Kino Stadium
• When: 7 p.m. Friday
• Radio: 1490-AM
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