Ramon Foster couldn’t believe the question Mike Keith was asking.
Keith, who was hired as the new “Voice of the Vols” in January, asked Foster to be his color commentator on the Vol Network. Foster, a former Tennessee football and NFL standout, had worked with Keith as a sideline reporter for Tennessee Titans radio the past two seasons, but he wasn’t expecting this.
“Me? Are you sure?” Foster said, recalling the conversation. “There was a pause and I had to mute my phone, because then I started going crazy … I didn’t see it coming. I didn’t jump into sports media to do this. I knew I wanted to be in sports media because I love the game.”
Foster recounted the story at the Knoxville Quarterback Club with Keith on Sept. 22. The duo are four games into their first Tennessee season on the Vol Network, and Foster still can’t believe it sometimes.
But Keith knew even going into his interview for the job that he wanted Foster as his color analyst, and he said as much when he was asked about it. After Keith got hired, he said several people were on board with his choice, including Tennessee coach Josh Heupel. He has also had former Vols reach out to him and voice their support for Foster.
Foster spent a lot of time around Tennessee Titans color commentator and former NFL coach Dave McGinnis during his two seasons as a sideline reporter. Keith knew Foster had been paying attention.
“Coach Mac is fantastic in the color commentator role. (Foster had) seen how Mac prepared and how Mac sort of assimilated to all of it,” Keith said. “Because Mac learned how the broadcast worked in that, you only have so long to talk, when you have to go to commercial breaks, all of these sorts of things. So we would turn Mac loose and let him be coach Mac. But he also knew the job we had to do, and his professionalism was so great.”
Keith also knew that Foster brought knowledge of the game with his experience playing at Tennessee and with the Pittsburgh Steelers from 2009-19. He was a team captain under former Vols coach Phillip Fulmer, and the offensive lineman earned All-SEC honors on the 2007 SEC Eastern Division championship team.
But Keith also had confidence that Foster had a “tremendous ability” to connect with his audience from his work on talk shows and podcasts, along with the interviews he did for the Titans broadcast. Foster hosts a Steelers-focused podcast called “The Ramon Foster Show,” and he has been a co-host on a sports talk show for 104.5 FM The Zone in Nashville since 2020.
But one of the most important reasons Keith wanted Foster as his color commentator was his “great love of Tennessee.”
“Listen, we’re the Vol Network. We’re not somebody else’s network or a national network. If you’re listening to us, guess what? We’re all for Tennessee. Big surprise,” Keith said. “But I want somebody there that has that sort of passion, particularly at moments where it’s my job to direct the traffic to make sure you know down and distance and things like that. But I want that … And also to have someone from Coach Fulmer’s era, I think, is vitally important too, because that was such a special era in our history.”