Carolina Panthers’ Spanish-speaking broadcasters sing a joy everyone can understand

Jaime Moreno is wrapped in a scarf and armed with a headset. Antonio Ramos sits attentive next to him. It’s third-and-10, 1:32 left in the third quarter of a 7-3 slugfest, and two of the Carolina Panthers’ most notable voices are scanning the Bank of America Stadium turf — mining inspiration for their next song.

Then, a yell:

“Suelto!”

“Free!”

“Balon suelto!”

“The ball is loose!”

Ramos, the color analyst, leaps from his seat as he shouts it. Moreno, his play-by-play partner, confirms with his eyes that the Atlanta Falcons fumbled and the Panthers recovered, and then he points to Ramos before bellowing a familiar rhythm.

“Conozco! Conozco! Conozco un Pantera que los afloja!”

“I know a Panther that weakens them!”

Ramos retorts back with a fistpump:

¿Como los afloja?”

“How do they do it?”

And then, somehow, after booming excitement through the mundanity of a 7-3 game through nearly three quarters, sprinting through that Sunday’s cold and wet and miserable marathon, Moreno finds another gear. Higher! Louder! Faster! The moment commands all three. Moreno knows it. So he takes himself and his 102.3 FM audience and everyone else in the booth along for the thrilling ride — capturing the drop of the roller coaster and the takeoff of the airplane all in a single sentence, one that runs on and on and on like Cam Newton once did and Chuba Hubbard still does and Panthers fans still do, through and despite everything.

Moreno’s lyrics:

Que los AFLOOOOOJA tackleando! Weakens them tackling!

Que los AFLOOOOOJA bloqueando! Weakens them blocking!

Que los AFLOOOOOJA anotando! Weakens them scoring!

And then, the kicker:

Per mira — como juega, como juega mi Pantera! Como juega, como juega mi Pantera! Me dan ganas! Me dan ganas de jugar! Dame unas! Pal-mas ARRIIIIBA! Pal-mas ARRIIIIBA! Yo si le voy, le voy a los Panthers!

The seminal line in all that, loosely translated into English: “Oh look how my Panthers play! It makes me feel like I want to play for them!”

By the end of Moreno’s music — whether you can understand it or you can’t, whether you’ve fallen out of love with this year’s struggling team or you’re still holding on — you consider the notion:

Do I want to play for the Panthers, too?

Bringing joy to this Panthers season

If you’re a Carolina fan, there haven’t been many reasons to jump for joy this season. The Panthers are 2-13. They were first to be eliminated from NFL playoff contention. They fired their head coach a few weeks ago, and their historic struggles won’t be rewarded with a high draft pick in April due to a blockbuster gamble last offseason.

But the notion that joy can’t persist through this difficult year is rendered wrong after a visit with Moreno and Ramos. It’s been that way since 2010, when the Panthers Spanish Radio Network booth began disseminating its football broadcasts with a unique, soccer flair to places across the world.

Today, in addition to the 21 affiliate signals in the Carolinas, the network has 13 signals representing 12 states in Mexico — including Mexico City. It also has a sizable contingent in parts of Latin America and Spain, who listen to the stream provided on Panthers.com. And that’s without mentioning the clips that go viral, or end up on SportsCenter, or end up on Adam Schefter’s Twitter feed.

“What you saw last night is what all of our fans get every single game,” Ramos told The Observer, a day after the aforementioned game against Atlanta.

Ramos and Moreno also work the Charlotte FC games.

“With the Panthers, Charlotte FC, both teams,” Ramos continued, “we try to put the same passion. The same energy. Just bring a different style to our Hispanic fans.

“Not only in the Carolinas, but also abroad.”

The history of the Panthers Spanish Radio Network

Today, the Panthers are one of 21 NFL teams to have a Spanish radio broadcast. Moreno, 62, has been a part of all 14 seasons. Ramos, 30, joined the broadcast team in 2020, replacing original color commentator Luis Moreno, Jaime’s nephew.

Moreno and Ramos landed in the same booth in different ways.

Moreno got the gig in 2010 after decades of living on the radio waves in Charlotte. The former college football player got on the Panthers’ radar during the first few years of the franchise, when Moreno would spend air time on Mondays talking with his nephew about Carolina’s newest team. The Panthers approached him about the job in 2009 and haven’t looked back since.

Ramos’ introduction was similarly serendipitous.

In 2014, a few years into the Panthers Spanish Radio Network project, the Panthers sent Moreno and a few Panthers players to Veracruz, Mexico, for a training camp for kids and a broadcasting seminar. One of the attendees was Ramos, a native of Veracruz who was studying journalism at a local college and who had been a Panthers fan all his life.

As Moreno tells it:

“We went to the town where Antonio lives, and I remember that night, we were having dinner, and James Anderson (former linebacker for the Panthers who the team brought along for the camp) came to me and said, ‘Man, I’m so impressed.’ I said, ‘What’s going on?’ He said, ‘I met this kid who knows everything about the Panthers, everything about me. He told me about some plays I did when I played.’ And James Anderson just kept going on and on about that kid.

“So the next day, I told my partner, I said, ‘I’m going to try to go get this kid from the crowd, so he doesn’t have to be among the fans. We’re going to bring him with us. We’re going to make him a part of the team.’

“So I get up in the morning: Guess who is the first person who (arrived at) the training camp? Antonio.”

Ramos kept in touch with Jaime thereafter and saw his professional possibilities bloom from there. While still in school, in 2015, he started working for the Panthers Spanish Radio Network as the organization’s Manager of Radio Affiliates in Mexico, all the while sharpening his skills as a broadcaster and calling Liga MX games for Club Deportivo.

In 2020, Moreno asked Ramos if he would move to Charlotte to be his color analyst.

Ramos accepted.

“I’m doing what I love with a team that I love,” Ramos said. “How could I ask for anything else?”

‘A bridge’ to Charlotte’s Hispanic community

In a 2015 story, The Charlotte Observer called the Spanish-speaking broadcasters in the Panthers’ radio booth “cult heroes among English-speaking Panthers fans” and “rock stars to Spanish speakers.”

Many still feel that way.

One of whom is Hector Cortes.

The Panthers super-fan, who’s known around Bank of America Stadium and the Spectrum Center as Sombrero Man because of his customized hats and unrelenting fandom, has listened to the Panthers Spanish Radio Network for years. Cortes loves their energy, their preparedness, their professionalism mixed with their enthusiasm.

Cortes knows Ramos and Moreno personally, but even still, he considers them celebrities — and still takes every opportunity to listen to them, even if it means pressing his phone to his ear at watch parties so he can hear their press box musings.

“Every time there’s a Latino, Mexican, Hispanic, whoever is Spanish-speaking — I will support them 100%,” Cortes said. “So when I found out that they had a Spanish broadcast for the Panthers, I went crazy. Like, there’s no way!”

This isn’t a new phenomenon. By virtue of their positions, Moreno and Ramos find themselves as representatives of Charlotte’s Latino and Hispanic communities, groups that have sustained steady growth in the area for decades. They inherited a similar role when Charlotte FC arrived to the Carolinas and truly revealed Charlotte as the international city it is.

Moreno described his job as being “a bridge” between the organization and the Hispanic community.

“On one side, we represent the Hispanic community to the organization — Charlotte FC and the Carolina Panthers, Mr. (David) Tepper and Mrs. (Nicole) Tepper — and on the other side, I represent the Charlotte FC and the Carolina Panthers in front of the community,” Moreno said. “So we always have to be accessible. We have to be humble. We have to help people as much as we can. And the most important thing. We have to bring happiness to the community through broadcasting.”

Moreno added: “I always say to my listeners, ‘Estoy de tu estes.’ I’m wherever you are. Wherever you are in your car, wherever you are in your office, wherever you are on your phone, I’m right there with you. Just take me with you, and let’s have fun together.”

And “fun” is something they’ve had plenty of over the years. One way? Nicknames. Longsnapper JJ Jansen is called “El Amigo de la Pelota’‘ because he “never has a bad snap.” Eddy Piñeiro has his own song every time he comes up to kick. When receiver Laviska Shenault made what might be the best first catch in Panthers history, taking a reception in the flat 67 yards for a touchdown, the two broadcasters organically started chanting, “Hasta La Viska! Hasta La Viska!” It soon went viral.

The duo has had Panthers legends and current radio personalities Luke Kuechly and Jake Delhomme in the booth over the years: Kuechly, better known as “El Confesor” by the Panthers Spanish Radio Network during his playing days, regaled them with stories of the Super Bowl-run 2015 season, when then-head coach Ron Rivera would play their Spanish broadcasts during film sessions. And Delhomme left the booth with his mind a bit blown: “I don’t know what you do here,” Moreno remembers Delhomme telling him, “but I’m leaving this booth so excited.”

“They’re also the voices of Charlotte FC,” Jorge Medina, a Honduras native who has helped with the broadcast team’s halftime and postgame shows for two years, said of Ramos and Moreno. “So like a lot of the soccer commentators, this is kind of the vibe, the energy that they bring. They’re just implementing it in American football.”

Medina tells me this in the booth, while Moreno and Ramos are working with such an enthusiasm that a 10-yard Chuba Hubbard run sounds like a game-winning touchdown pass in a Super Bowl.

“If you’ve ever taken the time to listen,” Medina then said with a chuckle, reacting to the environment he’s sitting in, “it’s like a roller coaster ride.”

Still there on Christmas Eve

A week after that Falcons win, and a few minutes before the Panthers host the Packers on Christmas Eve, Moreno and Ramos go through their typical pregame rituals in the booth.

Moreno hangs up his blue jacket, rolls up his sleeves and reviews the handwritten, highlighted notes he’d prepared during the week. Ramos positions his three different monitors the way he likes. Their producer, Ben Blevins, opens the audio recording software that makes all the magic happen. The booth’s windows are raised, letting in the sunlight and the beautiful 60-degree Carolina weather.

On this day, plenty of fun will be had. Rookie quarterback Bryce Young will break out in a way he never has before. There will be touchdowns and controversial calls and a result that’ll come down to the absolute last second. The broadcast will be fresh. And before they’ll sign off that broadcast, just as they always do, Ramos and Moreno will say in unison: “Si se puede!”

As in: “Yes, we can!”

As in: Yes, they will.

Because no matter what, there’s always a song to sing.