MORGANTOWN — By now, you have all been informed that West Virginia University’s athletic department has put out a request for proposals to manage its Tier 3 rights, which include virtually all the sponsorship and media assets.

To most, that is a lot of mumbo-jumbo and hardly anything to really care personally about, considering this involves marketing, signage, event marketing, tickets, hospitality and what they describe as “unique experiences,” printed materials on game day and in promotional publications.

None of this really gets the heart to fluttering, but there two areas that involve something that is very personal to any West Virginia fan and that would be television that does not fall under the Big 12 contract but does include highlight and coaches shows, and even more important than television, radio broadcasts of the game, the pregame show, the postgame show and the coaches’ shows.

Mostly, the face of this part of it is a person whom most Mountaineer fans consider almost a part of the family, the man who describes the action to them, Tony Caridi.

The first reaction to the announcement that these rights could go to heavy hitters like media giant IMG or someone of that ilk was to wonder whether any new WVU network that is no longer MSN would want to have a “voice” of its own, maybe even an announcer with a national name.

Certainly, Caridi had to be worrying at least a little about the future, a future that seems ready to see WVU become an even bigger national player in both football and basketball as a member of the Big 12.

“Really there is no concern at all,” Caridi said. “If you take a look at how most of these operations work, the athletic director has the ultimate say in the product. A lot of times people get the idea when a new rights holder comes in, he changes things across the board and makes wide, sweeping changes.

“The reality is, if you look at what has been happening at other schools when rights holders come in, there’s very little change. In fact, they try not to make wide, sweeping changes, especially if something is working well.”

Caridi says he would expect WVU not to give away its rights as to what the brand sounds like or to replace a longtime announcer who is both popular and entrenched.

In truth, this has been the only full-time job Caridi has had since leaving Syracuse in 1984 as a 22-year-old. Upon graduation he was a night news man, not a full-time position, with a station in Syracuse for seven weeks before Hoppy Kercheval called and offered an afternoon news job.

From there it evolved into doing some sports work, and he found himself in the right place as the right time, for the federal broadcasting laws changed to allow radio stations to expand into empires and the West Virginia Radio Corp. went from just WAJR and WVAQ into what has become a 30-station network.

In 1996, Jack Fleming, “the Voice of the Mountaineers” and one of the most beloved announcers anywhere, took ill, and Caridi filled in for him, replacing him the next season.

As time went by, Caridi’s relationship with his listeners became more intimate. He was doing WVU football and basketball and the coaches’ shows and the evening Sportsline talk show, building a following while also becoming part of the Mountaineer family itself.

Now, the situation is changing and Caridi leaves little down that he hopes to remain in the same position no matter what happens with the rights.

“It is what I do and it is the thing I enjoy doing the most. Literally I’ve grown up having some involvement with this wonderful, enjoyable experience. I want to continue that way. I don’t see this as a big change or anything like that,” he said.

“It’s the state we are in right now in this industry, the evolution of rights. It’s part of the deal. I have a lot of friends who are announcers across the country and we’ve seen this change and how it works, and because of that, I don’t have any worries.”

Asked whether that meant he expected to be behind the microphone for Mountaineer games for another 25 years, he laughed and said, “I would not be that presumptuous. I will be the announcer until the athletic department does not allow me to be the announcer.”

Email Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com. Follow on Twitter @bhertzel.