Ray Warren
Born	Raymond Warren June 11, 1943 (1943-06-11) (age 66) Junee, New South Wales
Residence	Castle Hill, New South Wales, Australia
Nationality	Australian
Other names	Rabbits (Rabbs)
Citizenship	Australian
Occupation	Sports commentator
Employer	Nine Network
Spouse(s)	Cher Warren
Children	Chris Warren (son) Holly Warren (daughter) Mark Warren

Ray "Rabbits" Warren (born 11 June 1943^[1] in Junee, New South Wales) is an Australian sports commentator, most famous for his coverage of televised professional rugby league matches on the Nine Network. On occasion he is referred to as "The Voice of Rugby League"^[2]. Ray also calls the action for Australian swimming team events. On Saturday mornings, he is a member of the panel on Triple M Sydney's radio sports program Dead Set Legends. Warren also writes columns for sports website The Serve.

[edit] Career

As a youngster Ray Warren was amazed by the ability of race-caller Ken Howard to paint the perfect picture of the race track. As a child, Ray used to roll marbles down a wooden slope and call them as horses.

He eventually followed in the footsteps of his brother and joined the police force. It was during his brief stint in uniform he got a phone call as a result of all the door-knocking he had done at various radio stations as a teenager. Ray took the job offered to him in Young, New South Wales as a rugby league commentator - a move which started his career in broadcasting.

He began commentating on the Amco Cup on Channel Ten with Keith Barnes in the 1970s. In 1980, Ten approached Warren to call the Melbourne Cup, the first of three Cups he would call for the network.^[3] He also became Network Ten's chief Rugby League caller from 1983 - 1986. In 1984 he was to head up Ten's commentary for the Los Angeles Olympics but refused to take the mission. As a nervous flyer, Warren had grave reservations about the trans-Pacific haul and suddenly realised he could not get onto the plane. In 1986, Warren was fired by the network, primarily because it wanted to replace him as its chief rugby league commentator with former international player Rex Mossop.^[4](Subsequently Warren spent a couple of years as Mossop's Co-commentator, however Mossop allowed him little input).

Over the next six years, Warren would also travel many miles to call horse races. In 1989 he was recruited by the Nine Network to commentate on the state of origin series alongside Darrell Eastlake and to be part of its team to broadcast swimming at the 1990 Commonwealth Games with Norman May. The television rights for rugby league were bought by Nine for the 1992 season and onwards and he has been calling the game for them ever since. Warren has overcome his fear of flying, and has travelled to the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Yokohama, Fukuoka and Montreal for the network's swimming coverage.

Ray Warren is known for his passionate commentary, and has often been parodied by The Twelfth Man. His voice has become synonymous with important rugby league matches in Australia, and he is renowned for his proficient ability to take over from fellow-commentators when anything interesting happens on the field.

Currently, Rabs also works on Sydney radio station 2MMM on the Dead Set Legends alongside Mark Geyer and Dan Ginnane.

[edit] Rabs' role in une culture du commentaire poétique

Since the inauguration of the National Rugby League in 1997, Rabs, as captain of the Channel 9 rugby-league commentary team, has been responsible for implementing what is known in league and media circles as une culture du commentaire poétique (literally, "a culture of poetic commentary"), whereby words and phrases of a more intellectual or poetic persuasion are inserted into a match’s commentary to lessen the perception that rugby-league is a sport for bogans^[5]. Channel 9’s commentators are required to attend classes once every two months with professors from the Australian National University’s Department of English where they study the writing styles of classics such as Katherine Mansfield’s Bliss and Mr Reginald Peacock's Day, and Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. The Picture of Dorian Gray is thought to be a favourite among the commentary team because of its Victorian era style of writing and effeminate and homoerotic overtones^[6]. Rabs is currently working on a thesis based on the novel's Lord Henry Wotton's world view of hedonism which argues that pleasure has an ultimate importance, and that humanity's most important pursuit is sexual self-indulgence. The provisional title of Rabs' thesis is "The Magical Game They Call Rugby-League From the Aspect of Masochistic Beauty, Linking the Character Dorian Gray's Perceptive of Self-Worth, Vanity, and Emotional Excess to Ideas and Feelings Inherant in the New Commentaire Poétique Era." It is due to be published by London's Oscar Wilde Bookshop in late 2010^[7].

[edit] Personal life

Ray Warren lives in the Sydney suburb of Castle Hill with his wife, Cher, and daughter, Holly. Ray's first son, Chris Warren, was a rugby league presenter for Sky Sports in England and now is a producer for Setanta Sports NRL coverage in Europe. Interestingly, Ray was once the chief commentator in a match that Chris participated in while he was a player for the Western Suburbs Magpies in the early 1990s.

[edit] References