Follow the team all season long with the 20-Second Timeout blog by Bill Schoening, The Radio Voice of the Spurs for the past nine years. Bill has over 30 years of play-by-play experience including broadcasting Major League Baseball, the NFL and the NBA. *Timeout Archive: October 09 | November 09 | December 09 | January 10

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Ah Yes...Those International Names
by Bill Schoening | February 2, 2010

Manu Ginobili and I recently had the opportunity to host a little Q&A last Sunday, along with PA announcer Big Kev, for a number of loyal season ticket holders who were gathered after the Denver game. I expected all of the questions to be directed at Manu, but one fine fellow wanted to know which foreign names were among my favorites to pronounce.

I must admit, I look forward to the challenge of trying to correctly pronounce the name of every player in the league, whether he hails from the state of Georgia or the Republic of Georgia (like Zaza Pachulia and Nikoloz Tskitishvili). I got an early start in practicing difficult names.

In my first season with Sam Houston State (that was the '83-84 season, by the way) we played the Bulgarian National Team (featuring Lubomir Amiorkov and Georgi Glouchkov). I had fun at Texas when the Horns played a football game at Hawaii and the Rainbow Warriors featured running back Tupu Alualu and linebacker Punaho Aina.

Gary Bender, well known TV voice of the Phoenix Suns, recently told me that has a certain "phobia" when it comes to getting some of these names right. What in the name of Luc Richard Mbah Moute is he talking about?